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A FEONTIER TOWN 

AND OTHER ESSAYS 



A FRONTIER TOWN 



OTHER ESSAYS 



BY 

HENRY CABOT LODGE 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1906 



iUBiNiiiV'^eiumiiiisa 
OCT 1 IS06 






Copyright, 1906 
Bt Charles Scribner's Sons 

Published September, 1906 



THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 



TO 

A. C. M. L. 

WITH THE LOVE AND GRATITUDE OP 
A LIFETIME 



TABLE OF CO]SrTE:N^TS 

Page 

A Fkontier Town 1 

Good Citizenship 31 

The Senate of the United States 56 

History 86 

Samuel Adams 128 

Theodore Roosevelt 162 

Senator Hoar 169 

American History 210 

Certain Principles op Town Government .... 225 

Franklin 249 

The United States at Algeciras 265 



A FRONTIER TOWN' 

" Seventeen hundred and fifty-five, 
Georgius Secundus was then alive, — 
Snuffy old drone from the German hive. 
That was the year when Lisbon town 
Saw the earth open and gulp her down, 
And Braddock's army was done so brown, 
Left without a scalp to its crown. 
It was on the terrible earth-quake day 
That the Deacon finished his one-hoss shay." 

It was a busy time just then, at the very middle of 
the eighteenth century. And two years before this 
annus mirabilis described by Dr. Holmes, two years 
before the Deacon finished his masterpiece, or Lisbon 
was ruined, or a British army was destroyed by 
French and Indians because it would not heed the 
advice of George Washington, — in 1753, on the eve 
of a war which was to convulse Europe, decide the 
fate of India, and give North America finally to 
English-speaking people, certain loyal subjects of 
George 11. on this spot established a new town-gov- 
ernment. The homes and the people had been here 
from a much earlier time ; but in 1753 the moment 
had come when the village of the Green River felt 
that it should be independent. The consent of Deer- 

* An address delivered at Greenfield, Massachusetts, Ju-ne 9, 1903, 
on the 150th Anniversary of the Incorporation of the Town. 

1 



2 A FRONTIER TOWN 

field, the original settlement, had been obtained, the 
State had assented, and thereupon Greenfield be- 
came a town and entered on her separate life. It 
was neither an unusual nor an extraordinary occur- 
rence — this birth of a new town achieved in the 
orderly, quiet way characteristic of New England. 
Among the great events then crowding and crushing 
together to settle the destiny of nations and make 
up the world's history, it passed quite unnoticed 
except by those engaged in the undertaking. Yet 
we meet here to-day to celebrate the foundation 
of that town ; and it is just and right to do so, for 
it was a deed wholly worthy of commemoration. I 
do not mean by this the mere act of organizing 
a town government, for that was simple enough. 
That which is and ought to be memorable to us is 
that men and women at this place had so far con- 
quered the wilderness that they were able to form 
a town, and that ever since they have been able to 
carry on their town government in peace, order, 
prosperity, and honor. It is neither the place nor 
the time that we would celebrate, but the men and 
their work, of which the place and time are but 
the symbol and expression. 

" i)S ovSev ovTf iTvpyos ovre vavi, 
eprjixos du8po)U fif) ^vvolkovvtcov ecra.^' 

"Neither citadel nor ship is of any worth without 
the men dwelling in them." 



A FRONTIER TOWN 3 

What we commemorate are these men and their 
deeds; and their founding a town was a good piece 
of honest work which represented much. It has 
abundant meaning if rightly understood, and we may 
well pause to consider it. The work was begun by 
breaking into the wilderness and in solitude and 
hardship subduing the untouched earth to the uses 
of man. It was continued for half a century under 
the stress of savage and desolating war. Then it 
was crowned with success and permanency. 

It is not for me to trace in detail that story of 
adventure and persistent toil, of courage and of 
hope. That has been done already, and will be done 
again still more amply by those who live here and 
who have given to the annals of this region the 
study they deserve. Tempting as all this is, it lies 
beyond the narrow scope of an address. All I can hope 
for is to bring before you quite imperfectly, rather 
disconnectedly, I fear, two or three facts which have 
risen up to me charged with a somewhat deep sig- 
nificance as I have reflected upon the history of this 
Connecticut Valley and of this town of Greenfield. 
It is not the hundred and fifty years which has 
struck me as at all important. Periods of time 
are all comparative. A century and a half con- 
stitutes a ripe age in Americ-a. It is infancy 
in England and in western Europe. But the oldest 
town of England is modern compared to Rome; 



4 A FRONTIER TOWN 

Rome is of yesterday when put by the side of Egypt, 
and the Roman law which runs far beyond our 
Christian era is a new invention when placed be- 
side the six-thousand-year-old code of the Elamite 
King, Humarabbi. On the other hand, time can- 
not be computed for us by the calendar alone. The 
Aruwhimi dwarfs of the African forests were noted 
by Herodotus, and then again by Stanley after a little 
interval of some three thousand years. If it had 
been three hundred or thirty thousand it would 
have been just as important, for nothing had hap- 
pened. As they were when Herodotus mentioned 
them so they still were when Stanley stumbled upon 
them in the tropical forest. 

" Better fifty years of Europe 
Than a cycle of Cathay." 

It is the rate at which men live which must be 
counted, as well as the calendar, when we reckon 
time. The years of the French Revolution covered 
a wider space in life and experience and meaning 
than the entire century which preceded them. The 
American people lived more and lived longer be- 
tween 1861 and 1865 than in all the years which 
had passed since Yorktown. So our century and a 
half of town existence looks very short when we 
put it side by side with the long procession of the 
recorded years fading away into a remote distance 



A FRONTIER TOWN 5 

in the valleys of the Tiber and the Nile. Yet for 
all that, it is not brief. Properly regarded it is a 
very long time, for it is with nations even as with 

men: 

" One crowded hour of glorious life 
Is worth an age without a name." 

The last one hundred and fifty years have wit- 
nessed political and economic changes more rapid 
and more profound than a thousand previous cen- 
turies could show. The same period has seen a 
revolution in the affairs of the world and in the 
relations of men, due to the annihilation of time and 
the reduction of space by electricity and steam, 
which separates us further in certain essential ways 
of life from the men who fought at Waterloo than 
they were separated from those who died at Ther- 
mopylaB ; and in all the history of this wonderful 
time there is no chapter more impressive than that 
which we ourselves have written. 

Let us look at it once more as it comes out here in 
the history of this town. Where we stand to-day 
was once a frontier, not a mere boundary line be- 
tween one State or one country and another, but a 
true frontier, the far-flung line of advance against 
the savage and the wilderness. I have often thought 
that a book which told the story of the American 
frontier would be of intense interest. As one looks 
at it in what seems to me to be the true fashion, 



6 A FRONTIER TOWN 

one comes to personify it, to feel as if it were a 
sentient being, struggling forward through darkness 
and light, through peace and war, planting itself in a 
new spot, clinging there desperately until its hold is 
firm and then plunging forward again into the dim 
unknown to live over the old conflict. Frontiers 
such as ours have been do not go slowly forward, 
building one house next another in the manner of 
a growing city. The Puritan Englishmen of Massa- 
chusetts Bay had scarcely fastened their grip upon 
the rugged shore where they had landed when 
Pyncheon pushed out from the coast and estab- 
lished his outpost on the Connecticut. From Spring- 
field the little settlements spread slowly up and down 
the river and thus the new frontier was formed. 
The older plantations along the coast were then no 
longer outposts, and the space between them and the 
western line lay ready to be filled in. Gradually the 
border villages planted themselves and crept north- 
ward up the river, subduing the wilderness and reaping 
the harvest of the rich valley. They were just begin- 
ning here when the red man came to the aid of the 
yielding forest and the savage war known by the 
name of Philip broke upon them and went raging 
and burning hither and thither along the river, 
thrusting itself down between the towns to the east- 
ward, and into the very heart of the coast settle- 
ments. Many were the fights close by here, most 



A FRONTIER TOWN 7 

conspicuous the bloody defeat at the Brook, and the 
shining victory at the Falls, which still bear the 
victor's name. For weary months and years the war 
blazed red and wild, then it began to flicker, flaring 
up only to sink down again into smouldering embers, 
until it finally died away, leaving ashes and desolation 
as its monuments. 

Again the pioneers worked their way up the river, 
again the houses rose and the meadows smiled and 
the forest was cleared. This time the settlers took 
a firmer grip. Grants of land were made here, 
mills built, and Deerfield, of which this town was 
then a part, sent her representative to Boston to 
sustain the cause of William against James. But 
William of Orange had more serious enemies than 
his poor, confused father-in-law. Louis XIV. made 
war upon him, and again the storm of savage inva- 
sion broke on the New England frontier, guided 
now by the intelligence of France. Much fighting 
and burning ensued, but the settlers either held on 
or if driven off came back after the Peace of Ryswick 
in 1697. Then a brief lull, then a disputed Spanish 
throne : once more France and England fought, and 
again the French and Indians poured down upon 
the valleys and hillsides of New England. Here, 
just here, the worst blow fell. Deerfield was al- 
most swept from the map already so deeply scarred. 
It was such a long war too. It went on for some 



8 A FRONTIER TOWN 

ten years after the sack of Deerfield. Men's hearts 
began to fail. They were ready, almost, to think 
that this was an accursed spot, dogged by misfortune 
and haunted by slaughter and pillage. But the stout 
hearts did not fail entirely. The men finally made 
their way back again after all. They held on to this 
beautiful valley, and over the ruined homesteads they 
finally planted themselves more conclusively than 
ever. War was not over, by any means. There was 
peace in Europe, but the Jesuit missionaries had not 
made peace ; and Father Rasle's War, as it was called, 
led to sharp and bloody fighting in New England, 
chiefly to the eastward, yet with enough of ambush 
and murder and sudden death in these valleys to 
make the people realize the hard tenure by which 
they held their lands. When the war of the Aus- 
trian succession came, Deerfield was still on the edge, 
but the fighting frontier had moved forward and the 
little hill-towns, each with its fort, formed a line of 
outworks. Before the " old French war," as we 
have been wont to call it, broke out ten years later, 
Greenfield had been born, and the line of frontier 
swung to the north and ceased to be a frontier 
when Canada passed into English hands. Now, too, 
it moved on westward until it joined that other ad- 
vance guard of settlements which had crept up the 
Hudson and then turned to the west along the 
Mohawk. The frontier days of the Connecticut val- 



A FRONTIER TOWN 9 

ley were over and it had taken half a century to 
do the work. Children had been born and had 
grown to be elderly men and women who had known 
nothing but more or less constant war. They had 
passed their lives in fighting to hold their own here 
among these peaceful hills, facing the wilderness, 
listening nightly for the war-whoop and watching 
daily for signs of a lurking foe. What a fine story 
it is ! — and have we not the right to be proud of the 
men who made it possible ? 

But the unresting frontier sprang forward, much 
lengthened now and running north and south along 
the Alleghanies when the Revolution began. Then 
George Rogers Clarke carried the country's bound- 
ary to the Mississippi, and after peace came the 
frontier moved slowly and painfully after it across 
the " Dark and Bloody Ground," along the Great 
Lakes at the north and the Gulf at the south. Then 
there was a pause while all that vast region was 
taken into possession, and then the frontier leaped 
onwards again in the southwest and pushed the 
boundary before it far down to the Rio Grande. 
Another pause while the settlements slowly shot 
out beyond the Mississippi, and then came the war 
with Mexico, the Pacific coast was ours, and a second 
frontier began to move eastward toward that which 
had been travelling westward for more than two 
hundred years. In our time we have seen them 



10 A FRONTIER TOWN 

meet. It was only a few years ago, and the meet- 
ing was hardly noticed. Men scarcely realized that 
there had ceased to be a frontier in the United 
States, that there was no longer a line where the 
hardy pioneers stood face to face with an untamed 
wilderness, ever pressing forward against it. Indian 
wars had ended, the red man was finally submerged 
by the all-embracing tide of the white civilization. 
Those wars had lasted for more than two hundred 
and fifty years ; they sank into final peace and silence, 
and the hurrying American world did not stop to 
note it. But history will note it well and ponder 
upon it, for it marked the ending of a long struggle 
and the beginning of a new epoch. The American 
frontier had ceased to be, the conquest of the con- 
tinent was complete, the work which the men of 
Greenfield and Deerfield had carried on for fifty 
hard fighting years was finished at last far out 
upon the western plains. If you would know what 
that fact meant ask yourself how it is that Amer- 
ican enterprise in the last six years, leaping over 
our own borders, has forced its way into every 
market of the globe, and why the flag floats now 
from Porto Rico to Manila. 

This making and moving of a frontier has been 
a mighty work, and that part of it which was done 
here during fifty years of conflict, remote, unheard- 
of in the great world of the eighteenth century, 



A FRONTIER TOWN 11 

seems to me both fine and heroic. There was no 
dazzling glory to be won, no vast wealth to be 
suddenly gained from mines or wrested from the 
hands of feeble natives. The only tangible reward 
was at the utmost a modest farm. But there 
was a grim determination not to yield, a quite set- 
tled intention to conquer fate, visible still to us 
among those men, silent for the most part, but 
well worth serious contemplation in these days when 
success is chiefly reckoned in money value. 

Consider, too, how this work of these old pioneers, 
wrought out here in this distant corner as it then 
was of the British Empire, formed, as all labor 
worth the doing must form, part of the work of 
the race and of the world. See how it touched 
and responded to the events of the world as the 
pulse beats with the heart; and how these men, 
consciously or unconsciously, it matters not, lived 
the life of their time, which, to all men who are 
real, must be the supreme test. Just before Parsons 
built his mill here, England was deciding whether 
James Stuart or William of Orange should rule 
over her, — whether she would continue free or sink 
back to an autocratic monarchy ; and Deerfield, not 
knowing how the issue might turn, sent her man 
across the forests to Boston, and cast in her lot 
with the Dutch Prince. Louis XIV and William 
of Orange grappled on the plains of Flanders and 



12 A FRONTIER TOWN 

at once the war-whoop of the savage and the crack 
of the English musket broke the stillness of these 
valleys. Such free, representative government as 
then existed rested solely in the keeping of the 
English-speaking people. France represented des- 
potism, and the power of France was its bulwark. 
The struggle broke out again under Anne, nomi- 
nally over the Spanish succession, really to deter- 
mine whether France should dominate Europe and 
America. For this cause of English freedom Marl- 
borough won Blenheim, Deerfield went up in flames, 
and Massachusetts farmers fell dead by their plows 
or hunted their French and Indian foes through 
the forests of New England. 

The struggle between France and England did not 
end, however, with the Peace of Utrecht. France 
was checked and beaten but not crushed, and the 
century was little more than forty years old when 
the long-standing conflict was renewed. Again the 
frontiersmen fought, and this time New England took 
Louisburg, the one serious triumph of an ill-conducted 
war. And during all this time, in peace and war 
alike, the people of New York and New England, 
slowly pushing forward, slowly gathering strength, 
were determining who should be the masters of 
America. The final decision could not be long post- 
poned, and it came to the last arbitrament in 1756. 
It was a great war, that " war of seven years," as 



A FRONTIER TOWN 13 

it was called. It settled many questions of mighty 
import : that Frederick the Great of Prussia should 
not be crushed, but should rise in victory over Bour- 
bon and Hapsburg and Romanoff; that India should 
become a possession of Great Britain and India's 
millions her subjects, — as well as sundry other mat- 
ters of less meaning to us to-day. But it also deter- 
mined finally that North America should belong to the 
English-speaking people and not to France, something 
more momentous to the world's future, politically and 
economically, than any other event of that time. 

Pitt said that he " conquered America on the 
plains of Germany." It is true enough that the 
death struggle then in progress between the Eng- 
lish and North German people, on the one side, and 
the Bourbon and Hapsburg monarchies on the other, 
had to be sustained in every quarter of the globe. 
But the effort to gain sole dominion in North Amer- 
ica for the English-speaking people would have 
been utterly vain if it had not been for the labors 
of that same people in America itself. The English 
colonies in America, founded and built up slowly and 
painfully by men whose existence England at times 
almost forgot, were the efhcient cause of the over- 
throw of France in the New World. 

" The Lilies withered where the Lion trod ; " 
but the Lion would never have reached the Lilies 
if his path had not been cleared for him by the 



14 A FRONTIER TOWN 

stubborn fighters of the American colonies, cling- 
ing grimly to the soil they had won and ever 
pushing forward the restless frontier, behind which 
towns gathered to mark the progress of the march. 

So the half-century of conflict ended. Another 
George was on the throne, the northern danger had 
passed away, and men began to consider their rela- 
tions with the mother country. We know well what 
followed. Ignorance and arrogance in London bred 
resistance in America, until at last revolution was 
afoot, and the American people determined to make 
a new nation in the new world. The movement now 
was toward independence and democratic govern- 
ment. In the latter direction all the western world 
was soon to take part, but the first step was ours. 
As in the earlier days when the question was whether 
English freedom should prevail over Bourbon monar- 
chies, so now Greenfield lived the life of the time. 
She sent her men to Boston to join "Washington's 
army. She responded vigorously to the call that 
came later over the mountains to go forth and help 
to compass the destruction of Burgoyne. And from 
the days of revolution onwards, so it has always been. 
You have always lived the life of your time. You 
have stood the supreme test. You helped to make 
the State. You sustained the Constitution upon which 
the nation was founded. From these valleys in gen- 
eration after generation men and women have gone 



A FRONTIER TOWN 15 

forth to carry forward the frontier and. subdue the 
continent, even as your ancestors did over two hun- 
dred years ago. When the hour of stress and peril 
came you have not failed. When the life of the na- 
tion was at stake your sons went forth and fought 
for four years to save the Union. In the war of five 
years ago soldiers from this town were at the front 
in Cuba, and the last sacrifice of young life was 
offered up at El Caney for flag and country. You 
have a right to be proud of your record, for you have 
done your share to the full, and no one can do more. 
You have never sunk back in ignoble ease and held 
aloof from your fellows. In the advance columns of 
the nation you have always marched. The stern cry 
of " Forward ! " has never fallen here upon deaf ears 
or been disobeyed by faint hearts. 

Yet there are some persons, native, alas ! and to 
the manner born, who can see nothing of interest, 
nothing picturesque, nothing romantic in this history 
of the United States, one little fragment of which I 
have tried faintly to outline. Such beings, steadily 
declining in numbers in these later years, always 
remind me of the tendrils which a vine sometimes 
thrusts through the crevices of a house wall into 
some cellar or unused chamber. They grow there in 
the twilight very fast, quite perfect, too, in form, for 
they are in shelter there where the winds do not beat 
upon them nor the sun scorch nor insects gnaw them. 



16 A FRONTIER TOWN 

But they are pale things, white of leaf and shoot, 
when they should be dark and green. And then 
winter comes and the vine sleeps, and when it awakes 
in the spring the hard brown trunk and branches, 
which have been twisted and whipped in the storms 
and faced cold and heat and sunshine and cloud, fill 
with sap and burgeon with leaves and rich young 
life ; but the tendrils which have crept into the shel- 
tered dimness of the cellar are withered and dead and 
bloom no more. 

So the pallid souls who can see nothing, read no 
meaning in all this history of the United States, have 
dwelt so long in the twilight of the past, in the shel- 
ter of foreign lands far from the rude, vigorous, ex- 
uberant life of this new world of ours, that they have 
grown feeble of sight and extinct of feeling. They 
must have ruins and castles and walled towns and all 
the heaped-up riches of the centuries about them be- 
fore they can believe that there is any history worth 
the telling. He would indeed be dull of soul who 
could walk unmoved in spirit among the tombs of 
Westminster, or gaze indifferently upon the cathedral 
of Amiens, or look out unstirred over the Roman 
Forum, or behold from the Sicilian shore, without a 
quickening of the pulse, the crags which Polyphemus 
hurled after Ulysses. Man's work on earth is of pro- 
foundest interest to man, and where his monuments 
are gathered thickest, memories cluster most, and we 



A FRONTIER TOWN 17 

seem nearest to those who have gone before. But 
those who think that this is all mistake the vesture 
for reality. They are still believers in the doctrine 
of clothes explained once by Thomas Carlyle in a 
manner which it would profit them to read. Like 
Lear they would do well to tear off " these lendings," 
come to the naked facts, and find the soul which 
inhabits them. 

There is something older than walled towns and 
castles and ruins, and that is the history of the race 
who built them. It is well to give the plays of 
Shakespeare all the splendors of mounting and cos- 
tume and scenery which the resources of the modern 
theatre can bestow, but these things are not Shake- 
speare. The immortal poetry, the greatest genius 
among men were all there on the bare platform 
of the "Globe" playhouse when a sign alone told 
the audience what the scene of action was. The 
background is important, very pleasurable too, but 
the drama of humanity is what gives it value, and 
the scenery is secondary to the actors and the 
play. The trappings and the clothes of history 
count for much, no doubt, in Europe or Asia or 
Egypt, — chiefly for what they tell us of those who 
made them; but man himself and of our own race 
is and has been here, too, for some three hundred 
years, just as in those older lands. Come out of 
the twilight, then, into the noonday and look at 



18 A FRONTIER TOWN 

him and his deeds. Here we have seen in our his- 
tory men engaged in that which was the very first 
battle of humanity against the primeval forces of 
nature, before there was any history except what 
can be read in a few chipped flints. Here in this 
America of ours in the last three centuries we have 
had waged the bitter struggle of the race against the 
earth gods and the demons of air and forest, but it 
has been carried on by civilized men, not skin-clad 
savages, upon a scale never known before, and which, 
upon our little globe now all mapped and navigated, 
will never be seen again. Our three centuries have 
watched the living tide roll on, pushing the savage 
who had wasted his inheritance before it, and sweep- 
ing off to one side or the other rival races which strove 
with it for mastery. Here has been effected the con- 
quest of a continent, its submission to the uses of man ; 
and there is no greater achievement possible than this 
with all its manifold meanings. Here the years have 
seen a new nation founded, built up and then welded 
together in the greatest war of the last century, at a 
vast sacrifice dictated only by faith in country, and 
by the grand refusal to dissolve into jarring atoms. 
To me there is here an epic of human life and 
a drama of human action larger in its proportions 
than almost any which have gone before. To those 
who can discern only crude civilization, unkempt, un- 
finished cities, little towns on the border, unbeautiful 



A FRONTIER TOWN 19 

in hasty and perishable houses, rawness and roughness, 
and a lack of the refinements of more ancient seats of 
the race, I say, you are still under the dominion of the 
religion of clothes. You hear only the noise of the 
streets, and you are deaf to the mighty harmonies 
which sound across the ages. 

There is a majestic sweep to the events which have 
befallen in this Western Hemisphere since the found- 
ing of Jamestown and Plymouth which it is hard to 
rival in any movement of mankind. And it is all 
compact of those personal incidents which stir the 
heart and touch the imagination more than the 
march of the race, because we are each one of us 
nearer to the man than to the multitude. These 
are the events which in the mass make up human 
history, and wherever human history has been made 
we find them, whether on the windy plains of Troy 
or in an American forest. No need to go beyond 
this valley to show my meaning. The little group 
in Queen Anne's War holding the Stebbins house in 
smoke and flame against overwhelming odds; the 
women and children in Mr. Williams's home, mur- 
dered, shrieking in the darkness, — are as tragic in 
their way as Ugolino in the Tower of Famine, but 
they have had no Dante to tell their tale. The 
farmer slain at his plow, the stealthy scouting 
through the dusky woods, the captives dragged 
over ice and snow to Canada, are as full of deep 



20 A FRONTIER TOWN 

human interest as the Enghsh adventurer or the 
Itahan Conclottiere or the German Lanzknecht, who 
sold their swords to the highest bidder in Italy four 
hundred years ago. They deserve interest far more 
too, and were doing work in world conquest which 
counted in the final reckoning, and was not merely 
a noisy brawl, dying into eternal silence when the 
tavern closed. Travel two thousand miles from 
here to the far Southwest, and look at the last 
fight of David Crockett. Is there anything finer 
in the history of brave men than that death grip 
at the Alamo ? The great scout wore a buckskin 
shirt, it was all less than seventy years ago; but 
strip the clothes, and man for man how does he 
differ from Leonidas? Remember too, as has been 
said, that Thermopylae had her messengers of death, 
and the Alamo had none. The spot where human 
valor has reached to the highest point attainable 
is as sacred in Texas as in Greece. It is full and 
brimming over, that history of ours, with the labors 
and toils, the crimes and the passions, the sorrows 
and victories of human beings like ourselves, — with 
comedy and tragedy, with pathos and humor and 
poetry. All that is needed is the seeing eye instead 
of a vision grown dim in a region of half-lights. 
Byron looked at it and the drama of the frontier, 
and the men it bred rose clear before him. In 
noble verse he has embodied that march of the 



A FRONTIER TOWN 21 

race against untamed Nature in the figure of Daniel 
Boone fighting the savages, fighting the forest, 
hunting the wild animals in their lair until the 
reserves of the army had crossed the Alleghanies and 
come up to his support. And then the old man 
feels choked and smothered by the civilization and 
the settlements for which he has cleared the way 
and fought the battles, and he passes on, a grim, 
grey figure, crosses the great river, and goes again 
into the wilderness where he can be alone under 
the sky and watch the stars and hear the wind 
upon the heath untroubled by the sound of human 
voices. 

It is a far cry from the English peer to the Amer- 
ican carpenter, but both could see the realities below 
the surface, and Whitman, poet and prophet, felt in 
his soul the poetry of the great democracy. He saw 
it in the crowds of New York, in the common affairs 
of life, in the great movement over the continent, in 
the pioneers who led the advance ; and in strange 
forms he gave it to the world, first, to wonder at, 
and then dimly to understand. Emerson, a greater 
man than either of these, read in his fashion the 
meaning of this great new world, and gave it forth 
in a message which dwells forever in the hearts of 
all who have paused to listen to his teachings. Haw- 
thorne and Holmes, Whittier and Lowell and Long- 
fellow, each in his degree, heard the voices of the land 



22 A FRONTIER TOWN 

and of its people, and touched his highest notes when 
inspired by them. 

They are all there, the epic and the drama and the 
lyric. They are all there in the great movement, 
with its wide sweep passing on relentless like the 
forces of nature. You will find every one of them, 
if you come nearer, in the small community, in the 
family, in the individual man, instinct with all the 
passions, all the aspirations, all the fears of the human 
heart, new with the freshness of eternal youth, and 
ancient as the first coming of man upon earth. And 
if the scenery and the trappings, the clothes, the titles, 
and the contrasts of condition are lacking, there is this 
compensation, that this story is all alive. It leads us 
to the very portals of the present, and the imagina- 
tion looking thence can dispense with an outworn past 
when it is able to range over the future which belongs 
in ever increasing measure to the new world. 

To this hour, then, we have come. We have trav- 
elled far in thought, and we have been gazing back- 
ward over the road by which we have passed. Let 
us turn our eyes for a moment upon the present 
which is our own, which lies all about us, and peer 
thence into the future which stretches before us lim- 
itless and unknown. We have toiled hard in our 
three hundred years. What have the generations 
accomplished ? Very great results, no one can doubt. 
By such work as has been done here in this valley 



A FRONTIER TOWN 23 

we have made a great nation, no greater now extant 
as it seems to me, and yet we are only beginning to 
run our course. We are still young and unbreathed, 
with mighty strength and muscles trained and un- 
exhausted. We have amassed riches beyond the 
dreams of avarice, and our resources are neither 
wasted nor decayed. We have shared in the revo- 
lution of steam and electricity, and harnessed them 
to our purposes as no other people have done. We 
have also in these and other ways quickened life and 
living to an enormous degree. Our vast industrial 
and economic machinery is pushing forward with an 
accelerating speed, at a rate which should inspire us 
with caution as it already inspires other nations with 
alarm. All the instrumentalities of learning, of art, 
of pleasure are growing with an unexampled rapidity. 
We have contributed to literature, we have done great 
work in science, we have excelled in invention, we have 
bettered vastly the condition of life to all men. There 
is to-day no more impressive fact in this world of ours 
than the United States. A great country, a great 
people ; courage, energy, ability, force, all abundant, 
inexhaustible ; power, riches, success ; glory to spare 
both in war and peace ; patriotism at home ; respect 
abroad. Such is the present. Such are the results of 
the century and a half we commemorate here to-day. 
But this is not all. We should be undeserving of 
our past, reckless of our future, if we did not fully 



24 A FRONTIER TOWN 

realize that we are human, that we have our perils 
and our trials, and that success can be kept only as 
it has been earned by courage, wisdom, and a truth- 
ful mind, which looks facts in the face and scorns all 
shams and delusions. We have met and solved great 
problems. We have other problems ever rising with 
the recurrent years, which, like those that have gone 
before, will not settle themselves, but must in their 
turn be met and brought to a solution. Our prob- 
lems are our own. They grow out of the conditions 
of the time, as those of our fathers did in the earlier 
days. From without there is nothing we need fear. 
" Come the three corners of the world in arms and 
we shall shock them." Nor does cause for serious 
anxiety arise from the ordinary questions of domestic 
management. Tariffs and currencies, the develop- 
ment of the country, the opening of waterways, the 
organization of defence and of administration can all 
be dealt with successfully. The government of our 
great cities, the problem of the negro, the question of 
regulating and assimilating our enormous immigra- 
tion are in the highest degree grave issues of great 
pith and moment which have a large bearing upon 
our future weal or woe. But I think they can all be 
met, that they all will be met with patient effort and 
with a due measure of success. None of them touches 
the foundations of society or the sources of national 
life, unless they should be neglected or mishandled to 



A FRONTIER TOWN 25 

a degree inconceivable with a people so intelligent and 
so energetic as our own. 

But there are certain other questions looming up, the 
outgrowth of conditions common to the whole world 
of western civilization, and arising from the vast ex- 
pansion and phenomenal acceleration of the industrial 
and economic forces of the age. They touch us par- 
ticularly, because we are expanding and quickening 
our economic movement more largely and more rap- 
idly than any other people. We have, in other words, 
a higher energy of organization and production than 
any other nation. For this reason we are driving 
less highly organized and less energetic peoples to 
the wall. Whether the opposition thus aroused can 
be stilled, or whether it will become desperate and 
manifest itself in a political or military manner, no 
one can say. It behooves us, however, to watch care- 
fully, and be always on our guard both in our conduct 
and in our readiness. Yet there are still other condi- 
tions which modern forces produce even graver than 
this. The dangers threaten from sources widely dif- 
ferent, even absolutely opposed, and yet reacting upon 
each other. The new conditions, while they have raised 
greatly the well-being of the community and of the 
average man, have also caused an accumulation of 
fortunes and a concentration of capital the like of 
which has never been seen before. Here lies one 
peril, — that of irresponsible wealth. Wealth which 



26 A FRONTIER TOWN 

recognizes its duties and obligations is, in its wise and 
generous uses, a source of great good to the com- 
munity. But wealth which, if inactive, neglects the 
duty it owes to the community, is deaf to the cry of 
suffering, seeks not to remedy ignorance, and turns 
its back upon charity, or which, if actively employed, 
aims to disregard the law, to prevent its enforcement, 
or by purchase to control legislation, is irres]3onsible 
and therefore dangerous to itself and to others. Such 
unscrupulous wealth breeds dishonesty, and when dis- 
honesty prevails the fabric is rotten and the end is 
not far off. The American people as a whole have 
been and are an honest people and haters of sham 
and fraud. Their future depends on their remaining 
so. The tyranny of mere money, moreover, in society, 
in politics, in business, or in any of the manifold forms 
of human activity, is the coarsest and most vulgar 
tyranny, as worship of mere money is the most de- 
graded worship that mankind has ever known. 

Over against this money danger lies the peril of the 
demagogue, of the men who would seek to create 
classes and then set one class against another, the 
deadliest enemies to our liberty and our democracy 
that the wit of man could imagine. Under the guise 
of helping to better the common lot, they preach a 
gospel of envy and hatred. They ask men to embark on 
changes which may possibly relieve them from the pain 
of seeing any one more fortunate and successful than 



A FRONTIER TOWN 27 

themselves, but which will not improve, and will 
probably lower and injure their own condition. They 
proclaim panaceas, social and political, which are as old 
as man's oldest attempts at government, and which 
have an ancient record of dismal failure. They ask 
us to come to a beautiful country of hills and woods 
and meadows, rich and fertile, with river and brook 
sparkling in the sunlight. They point to the prom- 
ised land lying far away and dimly discerned upon 
the horizon. If you follow them the vision fades. It 
was but a mirage, and you find yourself indeed upon 
a level plain, but the plain is a desert, arid and deso- 
late, where hope and ambition lie dead, and the bones 
of those who have gone before bleach upon the sands. 

I am no pessimist. I am an optimist, and I have 
a boundless faith in my country and her people. But 
he would be a poor sailor who did not watch for the 
reef on one side and the shoal upon the other, because 
his ship was leaping forward with every sail straining 
before the favoring breeze. So it is our duty that we 
all, each in his due proportion, seek to carry this great 
nation forward upon the voyage of life. We have 
weathered many storms and we fear them not. But 
let us not forget that however conditions change, the 
great underlying qualities which make and save men 
and nations do not alter. 

I look back upon the event which we commem- 
orate to-day. In the great book of the world's his- 



28 A FRONTIER TOWN 

tory it is but a line. Yet I find there the principles 
which alone I believe will enable us to strive and 
conquer as in the olden times. First, I see a great 
solidarity of interest. Those men were foes to an- 
archy, most hateful of all things in human history. 
They fought shoulder to shoulder, united in purpose 
and determined that where they dwelt order should 
reign, and not chaos. They met here one hundred 
and fifty years ago and did three very memorable 
things. They organized a town; they established 
a church ; they opened a school. The simple, every- 
day, instinctive acts of an American community, you 
say. Yes, truly, but it is because these have been, 
hitherto the simple every-day acts of the American 
people that America is what she is to-day. These 
men of Greenfield a century and a half ago recognized 
three great facts : religion, education, ordered gov- 
ernment. They recognized that they stood here 
upon the "bank and shoal of time" for one brief 
moment between two eternities. They declared in 
their simple fashion that the man or nation who 
did not recognize that there was something spir- 
itual in them higher than all earthly and mate- 
rial things, would surely pass down into ruin and 
darkness ; and that here pretences were worse than 
nothing, and could never serve. They recognized 
ignorance as an enemy, and using to the utmost 
such modest means as they had, they proposed that 



A FRONTIER TOWN 29 

SO far as in them lay it should not be endured among 
them. Lastly they recognized the vital need of order 
and government, and they set up the town-meeting 
the purest democracy this modern world has seen 
or can yet see in actual operation among men. In 
that town government they embodied, as the great 
central principle, the largest individual liberty com- 
patible with the rights of all. They built their town 
on the doctrine that all men must work and bear 
each one his share of the common burden, that the 
fullest scope must then be given to each man, and 
that each man thus endowed with opportunity must 
make his own fight and win his own way, and that 
no one else could or ought to do it for him. It was 
the stern doctrine of a strong race, but on that doc- 
trine the United States have risen to be what they 
are to-day. The rights and the good order of the 
community are in the charge of the government, 
and the government must guard and protect them. 
But beyond that each man's fortune rests in his 
own hands, and he must make it good. It will be 
a sorry day for this republic when the vital prin- 
ciple of the town-meeting, which has been thus far 
the vital principle of the American people, is dis- 
regarded or set aside. 

As we look back into the past it is well to bear 
these lessons in mind, for otherwise we are false to 
its teachings. In the problems and difficulties which 



30 A FRONTIER TOWN 

gather around us, in the future which stretches be- 
fore us — a great and splendid future as I believe — 
we cannot go far wrong if we cling to the faith of 
the men who founded this town a century and a 
half ago. They built it on religion, on free gov- 
ernment, and on the largest liberty possible to the in- 
dividual man. They sought no ready-made schemes 
to solve in a moment all difficulties and cure all evils. 
Slowly and painfully they had fastened themselves 
and their homes in this valley, and they knew that 
only slowly, by much hard work and never by idle- 
ness and short cuts, could they make the condition of 
the community and of all its members steadily and 
permanently better. They sought always to level up, 
never to level down. They looked facts in the face, 
and did the duty nearest to their hands with all their 
strength. They were diligent in business and pros- 
pered as they deserved. But they did not forget that 
intelligence and character were of more value than 
wealth in the long process of the years. They felt, 
dimly perhaps, but none the less earnestly, that what 
they were, not what they had, would count most when 
the final reckoning came. On the foundations they 
laid, the great structure of the- United States has been 
reared. In the splendor of accomplishment let us 
not forget the beliefs and the principles of those who 
placed the corner stone. 



GOOD CITIZENSHIP 1 

When invited to write on the subject of good citi- 
zenship, I felt a little as I think Cowper felt when 
Lady Austin asked him to write her a poem, and gave 
him " The Sofa " for a theme, - — somewhat at a loss 
as to what I should say, although for widely different 
reasons. The poet solved his difficulty by announc- 
ing in his first line, " I sing the sofa," and then going 
on with hundreds of verses in which he sang of many 
things, but not of the sofa. Cowper's subject was in 
the highest degree concrete, and there was nothing to 
be said about it, so that his solution of his problem 
was fairly obvious. Good citizenship, on the contrary, 
is an abstract subject, upon which very much has been 
said and written, which opens out indefinitely, and 
about which it is no easy matter to say anything 
practical and at the same time to shun glittering 
generalities and the repetition of commonplaces as 
to political duties which are, as a rule, more hon- 
ored in the breach than in the observance. It is 
also a topic on which it is painfully easy to be- 
come didactic, — something to be sedulously avoided, 

^ I am indebted to the kindness of the pubhshers of " Success " for 
permission to reprint here this article on " Good Citizenship." 



32 GOOD CITIZENSHIP 

because the definition of a didactic poem, as one so 
called because it is not a poem and teaches nothing, 
has a wide application to similar efforts in prose. 
There is, however, consolation for such perils and 
anxieties in the thought that, in our country, good 
citizenship is a matter of such vast import that it is 
hardly possible to say too much about it, or to repeat 
too often the maxims and principles upon which it 
rests and which all Americans ought ever to keep in 
mind. 

Assuming at the outset that in the United States 
all men, young and old, who think at all, realize the 
importance of good citizenship, the first step toward 
its attainment or its diffusion is to define it accurately ; 
and then, knowing what it is, we shall be able intelli- 
gently to consider the best methods of creating it and 
spreading it abroad. In this case the point of discus- 
sion and determination lies in the first word of the 
title. There is no difficulty in the second. The acci- 
dent of birth or the certificate of a court will make a 
man a citizen of the republic, entitled to take part in 
the government and to have the protection of that 
government, wherever he may be. The qualifying 
adjective applied to citizenship is the important thing 
here; for, while the mere word "citizen" settles at 
once a man's legal status both under domestic and 
international law, and implies certain rights on his 
part, and certain responsibilities on tlie part of his 



GOOD CITIZENSHIP 33 

government toward him, we must go much further 
if we would define his duties to the State upon the 
performance of which depends his right to be called 
either good or worthy. Merely to live without actu- 
ally breaking the laws does not constitute good citi- 
zenship, except in the narrow sense of contrast to those 
who openly or covertly violate the laws which they 
have helped to make. The word " good," as applied 
to citizenship, means something more positive and 
affirmative than mere passive obedience to statutes, 
if it has any meaning at all. The good citizen, if he 
would deserve the title, must be one who performs his 
duties to the State, and who in due proportion serves 
his country. It is when we undertake to define those 
duties and determine what the due proportion of ser- 
vice is that we approach the serious difficulty of the 
subject ; and yet the duties and the service to the 
country must be defined, for in them lies all good 
citizenship, and failure to render them carries a 
man beyond the pale. A man may not be a bad 
citizen, • — • he may pay his taxes and commit no 
statutory offences ; but, if he gives no service to 
his country, nor any help to the community in 
which he lives, he cannot properly be called a good 
citizen. 

Assuming, then, that good citizenship necessarily 
implies service of some sort to the State, the coun- 
try, or the public, it must be understood, of course, 

3 



34 GOOD CITIZENSHIP 

that such service may vary widely in amount or in 
degree. The man and woman who have a family of 
children, educate them, bring them up honorably and 
well, teaching them to love their country, are good 
citizens, and deserve well of the republic. The man 
who, in order to care for his family and give his chil- 
dren a fair start in life, labors honestly and diligently 
at his trade, profession, or business, and who casts his 
vote conscientiously at all elections, adds to the 
strength as well as to the material prosperity of the 
country, and thus fulfils some of the primary and 
most important duties of good citizenship. Indeed, 
it may be said, in passing, that he who labors in any 
way, who has any intellectual interest, who employs 
his leisure for any public end, — even the man who 
works purely for selfish objects, — has one valuable 
element of good citizenship to his credit in the mere 
fact of his industry ; for there is nobody so detrimental 
in a country like ours as the mere idler, the mere seeker 
for self-amusement, who passes his time in constant 
uncertainty as to how he shall get rid of the next 
day or the next hour of that brief life which, how- 
ever short in some cases, is, from every point of view, 
too long for him. 

Rearing a family, casting a vote, leading a decent 
life, and working honestly for a livelihood are, how- 
ever, primary and simple qualities in meritorious citi- 
zenship. They are the foundation stones, no doubt, 



GOOD CITIZENSHIP 35 

but good citizenship, in its true sense, rises much 
higher, and demands much more than these. Here, 
again, it becomes necessary to define one's meaning 
and get rid of generalities. All men who do good 
work have ideals at which they aim, dreams of what 
they hope to accomplish, and all, especially those who 
succeed most fully, fall far short of their ideals ; for 
self-satisfaction usually halts the advance and puts an 
end to achievement. But to come short of one's ideal 
is not defeat. " Not failure, but low aim, is crime." 
The ideal cannot be set too high, and then any pro- 
gress toward it is a victory, and the life-work is not 
barren of results. This is as true of citizenship as 
of any other great field of human effort. The ideal 
cannot be too lofty, provided it is compassed by com- 
mon sense and sound reason and does not topple over 
into eccentricity. But in order to possess an ideal 
which must be at once sane and lofty, it is essential 
to have a standard, and that standard must be clear 
and sharply defi.ned, not misty or confused. For 
example, if we wish to teach our children that loy- 
alty to the nation and to the union of States is a funda- 
mental quality of any American citizenship worthy to 
be called good, we must not as a people set up a monu- 
ment to a man, no matter how eminent, who won all 
his fame in an unsuccessful effort to wreck liberty and 
destroy the nation. 

Such matters emphasize the necessity of having 



36 GOOD CITIZENSHIP 

our standards of citizenship true and correct as well 
as high. Fortunately, we have not far to seek for 
examples which are both. We have only to look to 
Washington and Lincoln to find the highest type of 
citizenship. The greatness of these two men, and the 
vast work they accomplished, it may be urged, render 
them too exceptional to serve as practical models. I 
do not think, myself, as I have already said, that it is 
possible to set one's ideal and one's standard too high, 
and if every American, in his own sphere, no matter 
how humble or obscure, will set himself to imitate, so 
far as in him lies, the character of Washington or Lin- 
coln, the world will be made infinitely better thereby. 
But if the two great chiefs seem too remote for the 
daily life of most of us, other men less highly placed, 
but equally noble in their conception of duty, can 
readily be found for our imitation ; especially at that 
period of supreme trial of citizenship when the life of 
the country was staked on the event of war. From 
that time of storm and stress, I will take such a one 
as the best text I know on the subject. 

Charles Russell Lowell was one of the most brilliant 
of the younger volunteer officers in the Civil War. 
He had been graduated at the head of his class at 
Harvard University, and had shown intellectual power 
both in college and afterwards, in a remarkable degree. 
He went into the war at its beginning, and rose stead- 
ily and rapidly until he became colonel of his regiment, 



GOOD CITIZENSHIP 37 

and was then put in command of a brigade in Sheri- 
dan's army. In this position, he took part in the 
battle of Cedar Creek. His brigade bore the brunt 
of the attack during the morning hours, when the 
Union army was driven back. In a charge at one 
o'clock, he was wounded in one lung by a spent ball. 
At three o'clock, Sheridan, who had come up and re- 
formed his lines, ordered a general advance. Lowell 
mounted his horse despite his wound, and charged at 
the head of his brigade. A ball through the neck 
struck him from the saddle. He fell into the arms 
of his aids, and was carried to a farmhouse, where he 
died the next morning. On October 19, 1864, while 
Lowell was riding to his death in battle, Lincoln was 
signing his commission as a brigadier-general. He it 
was, in his uncle's poem, — 

Who, deadly hurt, agen 

Flashed on afore the charge's thunder 
Tippin' with fire the bolt of men 

Thet rived the Rebel line asunder. 

Sheridan said of him : " I do not think there was 
a quality I could have added to Lowell. He was the 
perfection of a man and soldier." So he stands out 
for us in the glory of youth, for he was not thirty 
years old when he was killed, a splendid figure in the 
full tide of success as a soldier, giving all to his coun- 
try, even to the last great gift of his life. Such a 
man's conception of citizenship, of which he was him- 



38 GOOD CITIZENSHIP 

self so fine an illustration, is worth consideration, and 
we are very fortunate in possessing it. About a month 
before his death, on September 10, 1864, he wrote as 
follows to a friend, also an officer in the army, who 
was at home, wounded : 

" I hope that you have outgrown all foolish ambitions, 
and are now content to become a ' useful citizen.' Don't 
grow rich ; if you once begin, you will find it much more 
difficult to be a useful citizen. Don't seek office, but don't 
' disremember ' that a useful citizen always holds his time, 
his trouble, his money, and his life, ready at the hint of his 
country. A useful citizen is a mighty unpretending hero ; 
but we are not going to have any country very long unless 
such heroism is developed. There ! what a stale sermon 
I 'm preaching ! But, being a soldier, it does seem to me 
that I should like nothing else so well as being a useful 
citizen, — well, trying to be one, I mean. I shall stay in 
the service, of course, till the war is over, or till I 'm dis- 
abled; but then I look forward to a pleasanter career. I 
believe I have lost all my ambition. I don't think I would 
turn my hand to be a distinguished chemist or a famous 
mathematician. All I now care for is to be a useful citizen 
with money enough to buy bread and firewood, and to teach 
my children to ride on horseback and look strangers in the 
face, especially southern strangers." 

There was a man who had achieved high distinc- 



O' 



tion as a soldier, to whom still higher distinction 
seemed sure, and yet out of the fiery ordeal of war, 
where he had done and borne so much, he brings, as 
his ambition and his lesson, only the desire to be a 



GOOD CITIZENSHIP 39 

*' useful citizen," to be of broad, unselfish service 
to his country and mankind. 

Good citizenship demands, therefore, something 
active : in order to be attained, the man must be 
useful to his country and to his fellow-men, and 
on this usefulness all else depends. Fortunately, it 
is possible to be useful in many ways. ^' Hold your 
life, your time, your money," said Lowell, " always 
ready at the hint of your country." To him it was 
given to make the last great sacrifice. In time of 
war, the usefulness of man is plain ; he has but the 
simple duty of oifering his services to his country in 
the field. But the service of war, if more glorious, 
more dangerous, and larger in peril and sacrifice than 
any other, is also the most obvious. When the coun- 
try is involved in war, the first duty of a citizen is 
clear, — he must fight for the flag; or if, because 
of age or physical infirmity, he is unable to fight, 
he must support those who do, and sustain, in all 
ways possible, the nation's cause. Good citizenship 
implies constant readiness to obey our country's 
call. 

Less dangerous, less glorious, rarely demanding 
the last sacrifice, the time of peace is no less in- 
sistent than the exceptional time of war in its de- 
mands for good citizenship. How shall a man, in 
time of peace, fulfil Lowell's requirement of being 
a useful citizen? He may do it in many ways, 



40 GOOD CITIZENSHIP 

for usefulness as a citizen is not confined, by 
any means, to public office, although it must, in 
some form or other, promote the general as dis- 
tinguished from the individual good. A man may 
be a good citizen in the ordinary sense by fulfill- 
ing the fundamental conditions of honest labor, car- 
ing for his family, observing law, and expressing 
his opinion upon governmental measures at the 
time of election. But this does not make him a 
good citizen in tlie larger sense of usefulness. To 
be a useful citizen, he must do something for the 
public service which is over and above his work 
for himself or his family. It may be performed — 
this public service — through the medium of the 
man's profession or occupation, or wholly apart and 
aside from it. This does not mean that the mere 
production of a great work of art or literature which 
may be a joy and benefaction to humanity neces- 
sarily involves the idea of public service in the sense 
in which we are considering it here. It may or 
it may not do so. Turner's art is a great posses- 
sion for the world to have, but his bequest to the 
National Gallery was a jDublic service. Regnault's 
portrait of Prim was a noble picture, but the artist's 
death as a soldier in defence of Paris was the high- 
est public service. The literature of the English 
language would be much j)oorer if Edgar Allan 
Poe had not lived, — his verse, his prose, his art 



GOOD CITIZENSHIP 41 

could ill be spared when the accounts of the nine- 
teenth century are made up, — yet it would be im- 
possible to say that Poe was a useful citizen, highly 
as we may rate and ought to rate his strange genius. 
On the other hand, Walt Whitman, who consecrated 
so much of his work as a poet to his country, was 
eminently a useful citizen of high patriotism, for 
he labored in the hospitals and among the soldiers 
to help his country and his fellow-men without 
any thought of self or self-interest, or even of his 
art. So Ralph Waldo Emerson was a great and 
useful citizen, as well as a great writer and poet, 
giving freely of his time and thought and fame 
to moulding opinion and to the service of his coun- 
try. The same may be said of Holmes and of Long- 
fellow, of Whittier and of Lowell, of Bancroft and of 
Motley. Li any event, their work would have taken 
high place in the literature of the United States and 
of the English-speaking people ; in any event it would 
have brought pleasure to mankind, and, in Dr. John- 
son's phrase, would have helped us to enjoy life or 
taught us to endure it. But over and above their 
work they were useful citizens in a high degree. Their 
art was ever at the service of their country, of a 
great cause, and of their fellow-men. They helped 
to direct and create public opinion, and in the hour 
of stress they sustained the national cause with all the 
great strength which their fame and talents gave 



42 GOOD CITIZENSHIP 

them. With Winthrop, their watchword was : " Our 
country, — whether bounded by the St. John's or the 
Sabine, or however otherwise bounded or described, 
and be the measurement more or less, — still our 
country." 

The poet and the artist, the scholar and the man 
of letters are, perhaps, as remote in their lives and 
pursuits from the generally recognized paths of 
public service as any men in a community, yet these 
few examples show not only what they have done, 
but also what they can do, and how they have met 
the responsibilities which their high intellectual gifts 
and large influence imposed upon them. There are 
also professions which involve in their pursuit pub- 
lic service of a very noble kind. Clergymen and 
physicians give freely to the public, to their country, 
and to the community in which they live, their 
time, their money, their skill, their influence, and 
their sympathy. It is all done for others without 
hope or thought of self-interest or reward. It is 
all done so naturally, so much in the usual course 
of their activities, that the world scarcely notes, 
and certainly does not stop to realize, that the 
great surgeon exercising his skill, which will com- 
mand any sum from the rich, without money and 
without price, for the benefit of the poor in the 
hospitals, or the clergyman laboring among the 
miseries of the city slums, is doing public service 



GOOD CITIZENSHIP 43 

of the highest kind, and is pre-eminently the use- 
ful citizen who goes beyond the limits of personal 
or family interest to work for the general good, — 
to promote the public welfare in every possible 
way. 

The man of business who devotes his surplus 
wealth to the promotion of education or of art, 
or to the alleviation of suffering, is doing public 
service. So, too, among business men and lawyers 
and journalists, among the men engaged in the 
most energetic and active pursuits, we find those 
who are always ready to serve on committees to 
raise money for charitable or public purposes, to 
advance important measures of legislation, and 
to reform the evils which are especially rife in 
great municipalities. To do this they give their 
money, as well as their time and strength, which 
are of more value than money, to objects wholly out- 
side the labors by which they support themselves or 
their families, or gratify their own tastes or am- 
bitions. In this fashion they meet the test of what 
constitutes usefulness in a citizen by rendering to 
the country, to the public, and to their fellow-citi- 
zens, service which has no personal reward in it, but 
which advances the good of others and contributes to 
the welfare of the community. 

Thus in divers ways, only indicated here, are men 
of all conditions and occupations able to render ser- 



44 GOOD CITIZENSHIP 

vice and benefit their fellow-citizens. But all these 
ways so far suggested are, however beneficial, indirect 
as compared with those usually associated in every 
one's mind with the idea of public service. When 
we use the word "citizen," or "citizenship," the first 
thought is of the man in relation to the state, as the 
very word itself implies. It is in that connection that 
we first think of service when we speak of a public- 
spirited or useful citizen. There are many other pub- 
lic services, as has been said, just as valuable, just 
as desirable, very often more immediately beneficial to 
humanity than those rendered directly to the State 
or to public affairs, but there is no other which is 
quite so imperative, quite so near, quite so obvious 
in the way of duty as the performance of the func- 
tions belonging to each man as a member of the 
State. In our country this is more acutely the case 
than anywhere else, for this is a democracy, and the 
government depends upon the action of the people 
themselves. We have the government, municipal, 
state, or national, which we make ourselves. If it 
is good it is because we make it so. If it is bad we 
may think it is not what we want, and that we are 
not responsible for it, but it is none the less just 
what it is simply because we will not take the trouble 
necessary to improve it. There is no greater fallacy 
than the comfortable statement so frequently heard, 
that we owe misgovernment, when it occurs any- 



GOOD CITIZENSHIP 45 

where, to the politicians. If the politicians are bad, 
and yet have power, it is because we give it to them. 
They are not a force of nature with which there is no 
contending ; they are of our own creation, and, if we 
disapprove of them and yet leave them in power, it 
is because we do not care to take the trouble, some- 
times the excessive trouble, needful to be rid of them. 
People in this country, as in other countries, and as 
in all periods of history, have, as a rule, the govern- 
ment they deserve. The politicians, so commonly 
denounced as a class, sometimes justly and sometimes 
unjustly, have only the advantage of taking more 
pains than others to get what they want, and to hold 
power in public affairs. To this the reply is always 
made that the average man engaged in business, or 
in a profession, has not the time to give to politics 
which the professional politician devotes to it. That 
excuse begs the question. If the average man, active, 
and constantly occupied in his own affairs, cannot 
find time to choose the men he desires to represent 
him and perform his public business for him, then 
either democracy is a failure, or else he can find time 
if he chooses ; and, if he does not choose, he has no 
right to complain. But democracy is not a failure. 
After all allowances and deductions are made, it is 
the best form of government in the world to-day, and 
better than any of its predecessors. The fault is not 
in the system, even if there are in it, as in all other 



46 GOOD CITIZENSHIP 

things human, shortcomings and failures, but in those 
who operate the system ; and, in a democracy, those 
who in the last analysis operate the system are all 
the people. It must always be remembered, also, 
that in representative government all the people, and 
not some of the people, are to be represented. In a 
country so vast in area and so large in population as 
the United States, constituencies are very diverse in 
their qualities and there are many elements. Some 
constituencies are truly represented by men very alien 
to the standards and aspirations of other constituen- 
cies. All, however, are entitled to representation, 
and the aggregate representation stands for the whole 
people. If the representation in the aggregate is 
sound, and honestly representative, then the theory of 
democracy is carried out, and the quality of the rep- 
resentation depends on the people represented. 

There are two things, then, to be determined by 
the people themselves, — the general policy of the 
government, and the persons who are to carry that 
policy into effect and to perform the work of adminr 
istration. To attain the first object, those who are 
pledged to one policy or another must be elected, and 
the persons thus united in support of certain general 
principles of policy or government constitute a polit- 
ical party. The second object, the choice of suitable 
persons as representatives of a given political party, 
must be reached by all the people who support that 



GOOD CITIZENSHIP 47 

party taking part in the selection. In the first case, 
tlie general policy is settled by the election of a party 
to power; in the second, the individual representa- 
tive is picked out by his fellow-members of the same 
party. 

This, in broad terms, describes the field for the 
exertions of the citizen in the domain of politics, and 
the methods by which he can make his exertions 
most effective. I am aware that in this description 
I have assumed the existence of political parties as 
not only necessary, but also desirable. This is not 
the place to enter into a history or discussion of the 
party system. Suffice it to say here that all experi- 
ence shows that representative government has been 
a full success only among the English-speaking people 
of the world, with whom the sj'Stem of a party of 
government and a party of opposition has always 
prevailed. In other countries the failures or serious 
shortcomings of representative government are at- 
tributed by good judges and observers, both native 
and foreign, largely to the absence of the party sys- 
tem as practised by us. The alternative of two par- 
ties, one carrying on the government and the other 
in opposition ready to take its place, is the system of 
groups or factions and consequent coalitions among 
two or more of the groups in order to obtain a par- 
liamentary majority. Government by group-coalitions 
has proved to be irresponsible, unstable, capricious, 



48 GOOD CITIZENSHIP 

and short-lived. Under the system of two parties, 
continuity, experience, and, best of all, responsibility, 
without which all else is worthless, have been ob- 
tained. That there are evils in the party system 
carried to the extreme of blind or unscrupulous par- 
tisanship, no one denies. But this is a comparative 
world, and the party system is shown, by the experi- 
ence of two hundred years, to be the best yet devised 
for the management and movement of a represen- 
tative government. Nothing, in fact, can be more 
shallow, or show a more profound ignorance of his- 
tory, than the proposition, so often reiterated as if it 
were a truism, that a political party is something 
wholly evil, and that to call any one a party man is 
sufficient to condemn him. Every great measure, 
every great war, every great reform, which together 
have made the history of England since the days of 
William of Orange, and of the United States since 
the adoption of the Constitution, has been carried on 
and carried through by an organized political party. 
Until some better way is discovered and proved to be 
better, the English-speaking people will continue to 
use the party system with which, on the whole, they 
have done so well so far, and the citizen aiming at 
usefulness must therefore accept the party system as 
one of the conditions under which he is to act. 

The most effective way in which to act is through 
the medium of a party, and as a member of one of 



GOOD CITIZENSHIP 49 

the two great parties, because in tliis way a man can 
make liis influence felt not only in the final choice 
between parties, but in the selection of candidates 
and in the determination of party policies as well. 
This does not mean that a man can be effective only 
by allying himself with a party, but that he can in 
that way be most effective both in action and in in- 
fluence. Many there must be unattached to either of 
the parties, whose mental condition is such that they 
can neither submit to discipline, nor yield nor compro- 
mise their own views in order to promote the general 
principles in which they believe, all which conditions 
or sacrifices are necessary in order to maintain party 
organization. These are the voters who shift their 
votes if not their allegiance ; and, if it were not for 
them, one party, as politics are usually hereditary, 
would remain almost continually in power, and the 
results would be extremely unfortunate. It is the 
necessity of appealing to these voters which exercises 
a restraining effect upon the great party organiza- 
tions. But these men who vote as they please at 
the minute, and yet usually describe themselves by 
a party name, and as a rule act with one party or 
the other, must be carefully distinguished from the 
professional independent, whose independence consists 
in nothing but bitterly opposing and seeking to de- 
feat one party at all times. This independent is the 
worst of partisans, for he is guided solely by hatred 



50 GOOD CITIZENSHIP 

of a party or of individuals, and never supports any- 
thing because be believes in it, but merely as an 
instrument of destruction or revenge. Equally in- 
effective, even if less malevolent, is the perpetual 
fault-finder, whether in conversation or in the news- 
papers. He calls himself a critic, blandly unaware 
that unrelieved invective is no more criticism than 
unrelieved laudation, and that true criticism, whether 
of a book, a work of art, a public measure, or a public 
man, seeks to point out merits as well as defects, in 
order to balance one against the other, and thus assist 
in the proper conduct of life. The real and honest 
critic and the genuine independent in politics are 
most valuable, for they are engaged in the advance- 
ment of principles in which they believe, and will aid 
those and work with those who are laboring toward 
the same ends. But the professional independent, 
whose sole purpose is to defeat some one party, or 
certain specified persons whom he hates, no matter 
what that party or those persons may be doing, tlie 
critic who only finds fault, the professional philan- 
thropist or reformer who uses his philanthropy or 
reform solely to vilify his country or his government, 
and to bring shame or sorrow to some of his fellow- 
citizens, so that his personal malice may be gratified, 
— these men advance nothing, for their attitude is 
pure negation, and they generally do great harm to 
any cause which they espouse. They are not useful 



GOOD CITIZENSHIP 51 

citizens ; but, as a rule, to the extent of their power, 
which luckily is not great, they are positively 
injurious. 

The serious difficulty, however, is not with those 
who give a false direction to their political activities, 
but with the political indifference which most good 
citizens exhibit, except on rare occasions when some 
great question is at issue which stirs the entire com- 
munity to its depths. Yet it is in the ordinary every- 
day affairs of politics that the attention of good 
citizens is most necessary. It is then that those who 
constitute the undesirable and objectionable elements 
get control, for they are always on the watch, and to 
defeat them it is essential that those who desire good 
and honest government should be on the watch, too. 
The idea that they cannot spare the time without 
detriment to their own affairs is a mistake. The time 
actually consumed in going to a caucus or a conven- 
tion is not a serious loss. What is most needed is to 
follow the course of public affairs closely, to under- 
stand what is being done, and what the various can- 
didates represent ; and then, when the time for the 
vote in the caucus or at the polls arrives, a citizen 
interested only in good government, or m the promo- 
tion of a given policy, knows what he wants and can 
act intelligently. His weakness arises, almost inva- 
riably, from the fact that he does not rouse himself 
until the last minute, that he does not know just 



52 GOOD CITIZENSHIP 

what lie wants, or with whom to act, and that, there- 
fore, he is taken by surprise and beaten by those who 
know exactly what they want and precisely what 
they mean to do. Here, then, is where the useful 
citizen is most needed in politics, and his first duty is 
to understand his subject, which a little thought and 
observation day by day will enable him to do. Let 
him inform himself, and keep always informed as to 
men and measures, and he will find that he has ample 
time to give when the moment of action arrives. 

No man can hope to be a useful citizen in the broad- 
est sense, in the United States, unless he takes a 
continuous and intelligent interest in politics, and 
a full share not only in the elections, but also in 
the primary operations which determine the choice 
of candidates. For this every one has time enough, 
and, if he says that he has not, it is because he is 
indifferent when he ought to be intensely and con- 
stantly interested. If he follows public affairs from 
day to day, and, thus informed, acts with his friends 
and those who think as he does at the caucus and 
the polls, he will make his influence fully felt and will 
meet completely the test of good citizenship. It is 
not essential to take office. For not doing so, the 
excuse of lack of time and the demands of more 
immediate private interest may be valid. But it 
would be well if every man could have, for a short 
period, at least, some experience in the actual work 



GOOD CITIZENSHIP 5 



o 



of government in his city, State, or nation, even if 
he has no intention of following a political career. 
Such an experience does more to broaden a man's 
knowledge of the difficulties of public administra- 
tion than anything else. It helps him to under- 
stand how he can practically attain that which he 
thinks is best for the State, and, most important 
of all, it enables him to act with other men, and 
to judge justly those who are doing the work of 
public life. Public men, it is true, seek the offices 
they hold in order to gratify their ambition, or be- 
cause they feel that they can do good work in the 
world in that way. But it is too often overlooked 
that the great majority of those who hold public 
office are governed by a desire to do what is 
best for the country or the State, as they under- 
stand it. Ambition may be the motive which 
takes most men into public life, but the work 
which is done by these men after they attain their 
ambition is, as a rule, disinterested and public- 
spirited. I have lately seen the proposition ad- 
vanced that, in the last forty years, American public 
men, with scarcely an exception, have said nothing 
important because they were so ignorant of their sub- 
ject, and have done nothing of moment because 
the country was really governed by professors, men 
of business, scientists, presidents of learned societies, 
and especially by gentlemen who feel that they ought 



54 GOOD CITIZENSHIP 

to be in high office, but have never been able to get 
any sufficient number of their fellow-citizens to agree 
with them in that feeling. With the exception of 
the last, all these different classes in the community 
exercise a strong influence on public opinion, the 
course of public affairs, and public policy. Yet it 
is none the less true that the absolute conduct of 
government is in the hands of those who hold high 
representative or administrative office. 

The personal qualities and individual abilities of 
public men, have a profound effect upon the meas- 
ures and policies which make the history and de- 
termine the fate of the nation. Often they originate 
the measures or the policies, and they always modify 
and formulate them. Therefore it is essential that 
every man who desires to be a useful citizen, should 
not only take part in moulding public sentiment, in 
selecting candidates, and in winning elections for the 
party or the cause in which he believes, but he should 
also be familiar with the characters, abilities, and 
records of the men who must be the instruments 
by which the policies are to be carried out and the 
government administered. There are many ways, 
therefore, in which men may benefit and aid their 
fellow-men, and serve the State in which they live, 
but it is open to all men alike to help to govern the 
country and direct its course along the passing years. 
In the performance of this duty in the ways I have 



GOOD CITIZENSHIP 55 

tried to indicate, any man can attain to good cit- 
izenship of the highest usefulness. It is not too 
much to say tliat our success as a nation depends 
upon the useful citizens who act intelligently and 
effectively in politics. 



THE SENATE OF THE UNITED 
STATES 1 

In discussions concerning the political development 
of the United States it is almost always asserted that 
the growth and extension of the power of the Senate 
has been one of the most marked and significant feat- 
ures of our history. It is also one of the common- 
places of a certain kind of criticism to declare with 
much gloomy foreboding, at some period in each suc- 
ceeding administration, that the Senate has usurped 
and is constantly usurping power, with great conse- 
quent peril to our political health and to the balance 
of the government. That the power of the Senate 
is very great, and that it has developed to its present 
proportions since the organization of the government 
is unquestionably true. But it is equally true that 
there has been no usurpation by the Senate of power 
not rightfully belonging to it, and no one, I venture 
to think, would make this charge or criticism who had 
studied the origin of the Senate or considered carefully 
the powers conferred upon it by the Constitution. 

To understand the Senate as it is to-day, therefore, 
and to comprehend its meaning and functions in our 

^ I am permitted to reprint in this volume this essay upon " The 
Senate " through the kindness of Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons. 



THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 57 

body politic, it is absolutely necessary to appreciate 
fully, and to know well just how and why the Senate 
was created, and with what powers its creators en- 
dowed it. By this comparative method, and in this 
way alone, can we learn what the Senate is now, after 
more than a century of existence. 

The framers of the Constitution of the United 
States had no serious difficulty in agreeing that 
there should be two houses in the legislative body 
of the new government. Even if they all had not 
been wedded to the double-chamber system by tra- 
dition, experience, and their own clear, good sense, 
there was no such success apparent in Franklin's 
single-chamber experiment in Pennsylvania, then 
drawing to an unlamented end, or in that of 
Georgia, or in the Congress of the Confederation, 
as to convert them to this new doctrine, or even 
to make its nominal supporters very solicitous for 
its extension! Such opposition as there was to two 
chambers came solely from the fact that the single 
chamber was thought to involve the vital question of 
the equality of the States, as against the national prin- 
ciple which was sure to prevail, wholly or in part, with 
two chambers. There was no real support for a single 
chamber purely on its merits, and, as has been said, 
there was no serious difficulty in agreeing upon two 
houses. With that point passed, however, trouble 
began, and so serious was it that, as every one 



58 THE SENATE OF THE LNITED STATES 

knows, the convention came near dissolution, and the 
whole Constitution was almost wrecked upon the 
question as to the basis of representation in the new 
Congress. The situation was saved by the adop- 
tion of the principle laid down by Roger Sherman 
and Oliver Ellsworth, that the only road to suc- 
cess lay through grafting the new government upon 
the State governments ; and following out this prin- 
ciple the House was made to represent population, 
and the Senate the separate States. This was the 
great compromise of the Constitution, the " Con- 
necticut Compromise," as it is usually called, but 
it really was the solution of the most crucial prob- 
lem presented to the framers of the Constitution. 
Without it there probably would have been no 
Constitution, and if one had been made with the 
representation of both Houses based on population, 
at the first attempt of the large States to control 
the government, the Union would, at the very out- 
set, have gone to pieces. The Senate, therefore, was 
regarded as the key-stone of the new scheme, and the 
framers showed their belief in its overwhelming im- 
portance by providing that the basis of representation 
in the Senate should not be altered except by the con- 
sent of every State, while every other clause of the 
Constitution could be amended by a two-thirds vote 
of Congress followed by a ratification by three-fourths 
of the States. 



THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 59 

The reason for fixing the basis of representation for 
the Senate so firmly in the Constitution that so far 
as possible it should be beyond change is obvious, 
although often overlooked. The Convention which 
framed the Constitution voted by States, as did the 
Continental Congress and the Congress of the Confed- 
eration. All sovereign powers of every kind, there- 
fore, were in possession of the States as such, and 
consequently every power which was given in the 
new Constitution to the people of the Union at large 
was given by the States ; every power which was 
reserved was reserved to the States ; and all powers 
conferred upon the Senate were intended to guard 
and preserve the influence and authority of the States 
in the new government. Hence, in the formation of 
the Senate the States were retaining for themselves 
all the powers which they believed needful for their 
safety, and, as everything was theirs to give or to 
withhold, they were naturally liberal in their endow- 
ment of the body which was to continue to represent 
them under a system where they necessarily parted 
with so much. 

It was for these reasons that the convention con- 
ferred upon the Senate both executive and judicial, as 
well as legislative powers. The executive was to 
be elected by the people at large, and the executive 
power, therefore, passed away from the States, but 
the States took pains to limit this great gift by con- 



60 THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

ferring upon the Senate the power to reject all nom- 
inations to office made by the President, and by 
granting to the Senate an equal and co-ordinate part 
in making all treaties with foreign nations. These 
sovereign powers of appointing executive officers and 
of treating with foreign nations were, at the time of 
the Philadelphia Convention, vested wholly in the 
States, and when the States parted with them to an 
Executive elected by the people at large, they reserved 
to themselves an equal share and an absolute veto in 
the performance of both these great and vital func- 
tions of government. 

In their legislative capacity the Senate was given 
all the powers conferred upon the House, or, in other 
words, the States retained for their branch of the 
national legislature all the powers allotted to the 
branch elected on the basis of population, with a 
single exception. That exception was the reservation 
to the House of the sole right to originate all meas- 
ures to raise revenue, — a power of the most funda- 
mental kind, — but as the convention took pains to 
provide that the Senate should have an unlimited 
right to amend such bills the reservation in favor of 
the House is so curtailed that their only real privi- 
lege is the monopoly of merely initiating revenue 
bills, which does not seriously affect the legislative 
equality of the two Houses even on this point. The 
Senate, also, was made the high court to try all im- 



THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 61 

peachments of officers of the United States, and this 
great function has been performed by the Senators in 
the cases of certain judges, and in 1867 in the trial 
of Andrew Johnson, President of the United States. 
The upper House of Congress was the natural and 
obvious body to act as a court in impeachment cases, 
but the fact is of interest here because it shows that 
the Senate was given judicial as well as executive and 
legislative power, and was made in this way to share 
in the duties of both the co-ordinate branches of the 
government, this participation being emphasized by 
the fact that when the Senate sits as a court for the 
trial of the President the Chief Justice of the United 
States presides over its deliberations. 

The States in convention, having thus created an 
upper House to represent them and continue their 
authority in the general government, and having 
endowed their creation with an unprecedented com- 
bination of legislative and executive powers, then 
further provided that the Senators should be elected 
for a term of six years, and that only one-third of the 
Senate should be changed every two years at the 
biennial national elections. These are very familiar 
facts, and it is obvious enough that the long term 
gives greater stability and a larger freedom of action 
to the body which enjoys it than would be possible 
with a short term. But only a somewhat careful 
consideration will disclose the ingenuity with which 



62 THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

the Convention, representing as it did the separate 
States, sought to enhance the authority of the Senate 
by these apparently formal arrangements for terms 
and times of election. The term of six years is three 
times as long as that of members of the House, and 
half as long again as that of the President. There 
are always, therefore, two-thirds of the Senators 
whose terms extend either two or four years beyond 
the life of the existing House. When a President 
comes into office, he meets a Senate two-thirds of 
whose membership have terms coequal with or two 
years longer than his own period of service, and in 
the middle of his term he has a Senate two-thirds of 
whose members have terms of service either two or 
four years longer than his own. Stated in this way it 
becomes at once apparent that the Convention sought 
by the six-year term not merely to add to the stabil- 
ity and dignity of the Senate, but to make it, so far 
as possible, independent at all times, through the su- 
perior length of terms possessed by a majorit}' of the 
Senators, as against the House on the one side and 
the President on the other, who were chosen alike by 
all the people of the Union on the basis of population. 
This painstaking arrangement as to the length of the 
term is supplemented and made most effective by the 
provision that only one-third of tlie Senate should be 
elected every two years. Joined with the six-year 
term, as has just been shown, the division of the 



THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 63 

Senate into three classes, elected respectively at in- 
tervals of two years, gives it always a majority of 
longer life than the President or the House, but it 
also gives the Senate a quality of permanency not 
possessed by the lower branch, or even by the execu- 
tive power. A House passes out of existence on 
March 4 in alternate years, and then ensues a period 
when there is no House, and can be none, until the 
members-elect are brought together by the summons 
of the President, or by the operation of law, to meet 
in Washington and organize one. The Senate, on^ 
the other hand, is always organized, always in exist- 
ence. It was organized in April, 1789, and has re- 
mained so ever since, for there never has been a 
moment since that time when there were not two- 
thirds of the Senators in office, able to meet at any 
instant and transact business without further formal- 
ity than calling the roll in order to show the presence 
of a quorum, or, under certain contingencies, choosing 
a president ^;ro temjwre. 

In this connection it is not without interest to con- 
trast the minute care of the Constitution-makers in 
regard to the perpetual existence of the Senate with 
the dangerous oversight of which they were guilty in 
making similar provision for the Executive. A Vice- 
President was created to take the place of the Presi- 
dent in case of the latter's death, resignation, or 
disability, and in the event of the death or disability 



64 THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

of both the President and Vice-Pi^esident, Congress 
was empowered to settle the succession by law. But 
in the case, by no means an impossible one, of the 
death or disability of the President-elect, or of both 
the President and Vice-President elect, after the ad- 
journment of the electoral colleges and before March 
4, no provision whatever was made for the succes- 
sion, or for the continuance of the Executive subse- 
quent to March 4. This was the way the matter 
was left by the framers in the original Constitution. 
In the Twelfth Amendment, adopted in 1804, which 
regulated the manner of choosing a President by 
the House in the case of a failure to elect by the 
people, it is said that if the House does not elect 
before March 4 the Vice-President " shall act as 
President, as in the case of the death or other con- 
stitutional disability of the President." Thus this 
amendment, by implication, provides for tlie possi- 
bility of the death of the President elect, but the 
case of the death of both the President and Vice- 
President elect remains as the Constitution itself 
originally left it, wholly uncovered. Should this 
contingency just mentioned ever occur, as it well 
might, some way out of the grave situation thus 
created would no doubt be found, but it would have 
to be extra-constitutional and through an assumption 
of power by Congress. In the essential duty of main- 
taining the existence of the government without lapse 



THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES G5 

or break this is a serious, if not perilous, omission. 
There is no such oversight, no such instance of neg- 
lect to be found in the constitutional arrangements 
guaranteeing the perpetuity and unchanging charac- 
ter of the Senate. 

Having now shown the origin of the Senate, the 
manner in which it was formed, the great powers 
conferred upon it, and the care taken for its contin- 
ued and unbroken existence, the next step, in order 
to understand the Senate as it is to-day, is to learn 
the conception entertained in regard to it by the men 
contemporary with the adoption of the Constitution 
who first organized the upper chamber of the new 
Congress and set it in motion. 

Early in the first session the Senate adopted the 
following set of brief and simple rules : 



1st. 

The President having taken the Chair and a quorum 
being present the Journal of the preceding day shall be 
read, to the end that any mistake may be corrected that 
shall have been made in the entries. 



IlD. 

No member shall speak to another, or otherwise interrupt 
the business of the Senate, or read any printed paper while 
the Journals or public papers are reading, or when any 
member is speaking in any debate. 

5 



66 THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

IIId. 

Every member when he speaks shall address the Chair 
standing in his place, and when he has finished shall sit 
down. 

IVth 

No member shall speak more than twice in any one de- 
bate on the same day, without leave of the Senate. 

Vth. 

When two members rise at the same time, the President 
shall name the person to speak ; but in all cases the mem- 
ber first rising shall speak first. 

VIth. 

No motion shall be debated until the same shall be 
seconded. 

VIIth. 

When a motion shall be made and seconded, it shall be 
reduced to writing, if desired by the President, or any 
member, delivered in at the table, and read by the Presi- 
dent before the same shall be debated. 

VIIlTH. 

While a question is before the Senate, no motion shall be 
received unless for an amendment, for the previous ques- 
tion, or for postponing the main question, or to commit it, 

or to adjourn. 

IXth. 

The previous question being moved and seconded, the 
question from the Chair shall be — " Shall the main ques- 
tion be now put?" — And if the nays prevail, the main 
question shall not then be put. 



THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 67 

Xth. 

If a question in debate contain several points, any mem- 
ber may have the same divided. 

XlTH. 

When the yeas and nays shall be called for by one-fifth 
of the members present, each member called upon shall, 
unless for special reason he be excused by the Senate, 
declare openly and without debate his assent or dissent 
to the question. In taking the yeas and nays, and upon 
the call of the House, the names of the members shall be 
taken alphabetically. 

XIIth. 

One day's notice at least shall be given of an intended 
motion for leave to bring in a bill. 

XIIIth. 

Every bill shall receive three readings previous to its 
being passed : and the President shall give notice at each, 
whether it be the first, second, or third ; which readings 
shall be on three different days, unless the Senate unani- 
mously direct otherwise. 

XIVth. 

No bill shall be committed or amended until it shall have 
been twice read, after which it may be referred to a 
Committee. 

XVth. 

All Committees shall be appointed by ballot and a plu- 
rality of votes shall make a choice. 



68 THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

XVIth. 

When a member shall be called to order, he shall sit 
down until the President shall have determined whether he 
is in order or not ; and every question of order shall be de- 
cided by the President without debate : but if there be a 
doubt in his mind he may call for the sense of the Senate. 

XVIIth. 

If a member be called to order for words spoken, the ex- 
ceptionable words shall be immediately taken down in 
writing, that the President may be better enabled to judge 
of the matter. 

XVIIIth. 

When a blank is be filled, and different sums shall be 
proposed, the question shall be taken on the highest sum 
first. 

XIXth. 

No member shall absent himself from the service of the 
Senate without leave of the Senate first obtained.^ 

For a legislative body charged with executive func- 
tions these rules seem rudimentary to the last degree. 
But it must be remembered that the first Senate 
which assembled in the Federal Hall of New York in 
April, 1789, consisted of only twenty- two members, 
as North Carolina did not accede to the Constitution 
until November of the same year, while Rhode Island 
held off until June, 1790. These twenty-two gentle- 

^ From the " Journal of the First Session of the Senate of the United 
States of America, March 4th, 1789. New York, 1789." Pages 14-15. 



THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 69 

men, therefore, sat together in one not very large 
room, and talked matters over with an informality 
and a familiarity which have never entirely departed 
from the Senate debates, and which still reign in ex- 
ecutive sessions. All their sessions at the outset were 
entirely private, there was no record of the debates, 
and the deliberations in legislative session were not 
opened to the public until 1793, on the occasion of 
the contest over the right of Albert Gallatin to a seat. 
This small body of men sitting in this way in private, 
with comparatively little to do, and with no record of 
the proceedings but the journal, did not require any- 
thing very elaborate in the way of rules. Business 
was largely transacted by general assent, and with 
much regard for the convenience of each Senator, — 
habits which have survived unchanged to the present 
time, and which, although often jeered at by persons 
outside the Senate, are of much value and comfort to 
those within. There is, however, one rule in this 
primitive code which seems almost needless for so 
small a body and which is at direct variance with 
what is to-day one of the most cherished traditions 
and most characteristic features of the Senate. This 
rule is numbered nine, and provides for the previous 
question to close debate in the simplest and most 
drastic manner. The previous question in the first 
Senate was a privileged motion, as appears by rule 
eight. It could be moved and seconded at any time, 



70 THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

passed by a majority vote, and if agreed to it cut off 
all debate then and there. When the rules were re- 
vised, in 1806, this provision for closing debate was 
dropped, and unlimited debate has been the un- 
changing rule of the Senate ever since. In fact, 
the rules of 1806, despite numerous revisions, which 
made no very vital changes, and a few amendments 
have remained substantially the rules of the Senate 
down to the present time. Under these century-old 
rules, for which there is often a fine disregard in prac- 
tice, the Senate still transacts its business largely by 
unanimous consent and with a consideration for the 
wishes and convenience of each Senator very agree- 
able to them, although not a little laughed at by an 
irreverent public. These rules, which have endured 
so long, are an excellent illustration of the conserva- 
tism of the Senate and of the unbroken continuity of 
its existence as an organized body since the foundation 
of the government. They also show how closely the 
Senate has adhered to the conception of its duties and 
functions entertained by the framers of the Constitu- 
tion and the organizers of the government. 

Beyond this the Senate rules do not require any 
detailed examination. There is, indeed, only one 
which first appears in the revision of 1806 which 
needs to be mentioned on account of the ligrht which 
it throws on the relation of the Senate to the purely 
executive branch of the government, and it is only by 



THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 71 

a just comprehension of the relations of the Senate to 
the President and to the House that a proper under- 
standing of what the Senate has come to be and 
what part it plays in our political system can be 
obtained. 

The first code of rules, adopted in 1789, makes, as 
will have been seen, no provision for the President's 
meeting with the Senate in executive session. That 
he should do so was taken as a matter of course, and 
was in conformity with the ideas of the framers of 
the instrument. In accordance with this view Wash- 
ington, in August, 1789, met with the Senate twice 
to formulate the provisions of a treaty to be made 
with the Choctaw Indians. The scheme did not 
work well. The President did not enjoy sitting by 
and hearing the terms of his treaty discussed, and 
Senators were embarrassed by being compelled to de- 
bate and vote upon the President's proposals in his 
presence. The plan of personal meeting with the 
Senate was, therefore, given up by Washington, and 
has never been resumed. But the right of the Presi- 
dent to come to the Senate for personal consultation, 
and the original constitutional theory in this respect, 
have never been abandoned, as will appear if we 
examine the later rules. 

In the revision of the rules adopted March 26, 
1806, rule thirty-four provides, under the head of 
nominations, that : 



72 THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

" When the President of the United States shall meet 
the Senate in the Senate Chamber the President of tlie 
Senate shall have a chair on the floor, be considered as 
the head of the Senate, and his chair shall be assigned 
to the President of the United States." 

Rule thirty-five provides that : 

" All questions shall be put by the President of the 
Senate either in the presence or absence of the Picsident 
of the United States." 

In the revision of 1820 the provision of rule thirty- 
five of 1806 was dropped, but that of rule thirty-four 
was retained and continued as a rule of the Senate 
until 1877, when the following rule (sixty-five), 
differing only in phraseology, was substituted for it : 

" When the President of the United States shall meet 
the Senate in the Senate Chamber for the consideration 
of executive business, he shall have a seat on the right 
of the chair.^' 

This is the rule at the present time, and although 
it is never put into practical operation, it has impor- 
tance not merely as embodying an unbroken tradition, 
but as a formal recognition of certain constitutional 
principles of very great moment. By this rule are 
recognized the right of the President to consult per- 
sonally with the Senate, the position of the Senators 
as the President's only constitutional advisers, and 
the equality of the Senate in the conduct of all 
executive business in which, under the Constitu- 



THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 73 

tion, they are entitled to share. The right of the 
President personally to consult the Senate as a body 
involves also the correlative right of the Senate, in 
the language of the Constitution, to advise the Presi- 
dent. To the Senate alone is given this right to ad- 
vise the Executive. The members of the Cabinet 
are often loosely spoken of as the constitutional ad- 
visers of the President. They are, as a matter of 
fact, nothing of the sort. They are not created 
by the Constitution, but by the laws which the 
Constitution authorizes Congress to pass in order 
to carry out its provisions. The Constitution con- 
templates the establishment of executive depart- 
ments, and says that the President may require 
the opinion in writing of the heads of such depart- 
ments, but these departments can exist only by 
the pleasure of Congress, and the President is not 
bound to consult their chiefs. A story is told of 
Lincoln's submitting a proposition which he fav- 
ored to his Cabinet. All were against it. " Seven 
nays; one yea," said the President; "the ayes have 
it, and it is so ordered." Whether apocryphal or 
not the anecdote illustrates the distinction between 
the constitutional Senate and the statutory Cabinet. 
An adverse majority in the Senate cannot be over- 
come in that way, for the Constitution gives the 
Senate power, while the law alone creates the Cab- 
inet, whose members represent in the last analysis 



74 THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

simply the policy and will of the Executive. The 
equality of the Senate in executive business — the 
last point recognized by the rule — is shown by 
the care taken from the beginning to make it per- 
fectly clear tliat the President is neither to preside 
over nor to share in the discussions of the Senate, 
but is to deal with them as an organized body, 
under the guidance of their own presiding officer. 

Such being the theory of the Constitution, never 
abandoned since the beginning, the manner in which 
it has been worked out in practice shows at once the 
position of the Senate to-day. Since August, 1789, 
the President has never consulted or sat with the 
Senate in person to consider executive business, 
either in relation to nominations or to treaties. But 
while the inconvenience of personal consultation 
was thus early made apparent, it became at once 
equally obvious that to hold no consultation with 
a body of constitutional advisers about nominations 
and treaties upon which they had the power to put 
an absolute veto, would be at once dangerous and 
absurd. 

In 1789 Washington sent in the nomination of 
Benjamin Fishburn for the place of Naval Officer 
at the port of Savannah. He was rejected by the 
Senate. Fishburn had been an old soldier, and 
was well known to Washington, who was very 
much annoyed by his rejection. When he sent in 



THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 75 

another name for the same place he transmitted 
a message to the Senate in which he said : 

" Whatever may have been the reasons which induced 
your dissent, I am persuaded that they were such as you 
deemed sufficient. Permit me to submit to your consid- 
eration, whether, on occasions where the propriety of nomi- 
nations appears questionable to you, it would not be 
expedient to communicate that circumstance to me, and 
thereby avail yourselves of the information which led me 
to make them, and which I would with pleasure lay be- 
fore you. Probably my reasons for nominating Mr. Fish- 
burn may tend to show that such a mode of proceeding, 
in such cases, might be useful. I will therefore detail 
them." 

He then went on to give an account of Colonel 
Fishburn and the reasons which had led to his nom- 
ination. The motives which influenced the Senate 
in the rejection of Fishburn do not appear, but the 
passage which has been quoted from Washington's 
special message demonstrates not only his belief in 
the need of consultation with the Senate about 
nominations, but the absolute necessity for it in 
order to prevent constant friction between the Senate 
and the Executive. This case undoubtedly led, there- 
fore, to the practice which has been continued to the 
present time of the President consulting with Sen- 
ators in regard to appointments. As the Senate, af- 
ter it has confirmed a nomination, becomes equally 
responsible with the President for the appointment. 



76 THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

it is obvious that the right of consultation under 
the Constitution, which has already been defined, 
must be exercised in some way. Thus it came 
about that informal consultations with individual 
Senators took the place of the cumbrous and in- 
convenient method of consulting the Senate as a 
body, and in this way the intent of the Constitu- 
tion has been carried out. Nothing, therefore, is 
more inept than to criticise a President because 
he consults the Senators from a State in regard 
to an appointment in or from that State. The 
Senators are his constitutional advisers. In some 
way he must consult them, and it is impossible 
that any President should be able to know enough 
about the men in forty-five States to enable him 
to appoint intelligently unless he could avail him- 
self of the knowledge of those who represent the 
several States. The consultation of Senators by 
the President, therefore, in regard to appointments, 
is nothing more than carrying out the intent of 
the Constitution in the manner which practice has 
shown to be the only convenient one. The influence 
of the Senate in making appointments is not in- 
creased thereby, except so far as the multiplication 
of officers has made it more necessary for the Pres- 
ident to receive local information and depend for 
it upon the Senators more than was essential in 
the early days. All that has been done constitu- 



THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 77 

tionally is to substitute an informal consultation 
with individual Senators for the consultation of the 
Senate as a body, which has been always recog- 
nized as a constitutional right in the simple rule 
already quoted. 

The question of appointments to office was closely 
allied to that of removals, and while the right of the 
Senate to confirm or reject all nominations was plain 
and undoubted, the question of the right of the Presi- 
dent to remove gave rise from the beginning to a 
great deal of discussion. There was a' protracted 
debate upon this point in regard to the act estab- 
lishing the Treasury Department, passed in 1789, 
the question being whether the President had the 
right to remove absolutely under the Constitution, 
either with or without any reference to it in the 
law, or whether the Congress could confer upon 
the President or withhold from him the right to 
remove from an office which Congress had estab- 
lished. The act of 1789 finally provided, in sec- 
tion 7, "that whenever the Secretary should be 
removed from office by the President of the Uni- 
ted States or in any other case of vacancy," etc. 
This recognized the right of the President to re- 
move, but the fact of the recognition in the law 
conveyed the implication that it was not a purely 
constitutional right of the Executive for which no 
legislation was necessary. The question remained 



78 THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

an open one and was discussed at intervals for 
some years, the Senate on more than one occasion, 
especially under Andrew Jackson, making efforts 
to establish some control over removals from office. 
Finally, in the bitter controversy with Andrew 
Johnson, the well known Tenure of Office Act was 
passed. It was so obviously objectionable that Gen- 
eral Grant sent in a message to his first Congress 
urging its repeal, but the Senate, fresh from the 
struggle with Johnson, refused to do more than 
modify it. During Mr. Cleveland's first term the 
Senate, led by Senator Edmunds, of Vermont, had 
a controversy with the President as to its right 
to require him to give reasons for his removals, 
and thereby some of the nominations were hung 
up for a good many months. The sympathy of 
the country was with the President, and the con- 
test seemed to be doing a great deal of harm. In 
the session of 1886-87, Senator Hoar introduced 
a bill, which became law on March 3, 1887, by 
which the Tenure of Office Act was repealed. This 
ended the controversy, and it may now be taken as 
settled that the absolute right of the President to 
remove, under the Constitution, is recognized, and 
that the right of the Senate to ask for the reasons 
for removals, which they clearly had under the 
Tenure of Office Act, has also been abandoned. 
That the present position is sound constitutionally 



THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 79 

is, I think, clear, but the course of events shows 
that in this important direction the Senate has 
given up a power which at one time it asserted 
not only in debate but by a law. 

In regard to the other branch of the Senate's 
executive functions, the treaty-making power, the 
course of development has been much the same, — 
consultation of individual Senators, either directly 
by the President or through the Secretary of State 
by means of communication with the Committee on 
Foreign Relations, having been substituted for the old 
plan of counselling beforehand with the Senate as a 
body. The treaty-making power of the Senate is a 
large subject, which I have already discussed at length 
in an article which appeared in a previous volume,^ 
but the results of more than a century of development 
in this direction may be briefly summed up. 

The Senate has the right, under the language of 
the Constitution, to advise beforehand that the ne- 
gotiation be entered into, or the reverse. This right 
has been exercised on two or three occasions, but very 
rarely, and has usually been allowed to fall into abey- 
ance, although circumstances may make its use neces- 
sary and desirable at any time.^ The Presidents have 

^ " A Fighting Frigate and other Essays and Addresses " — Charles 
Scribner's Sons, 1902. 

2 In the last session of Congress (1905-1906) the " Niagara Bill " con- 
tains a section by which Congress requests the President to enter upon 
negotiations with Great Britain for the preservation of Niagara Falls. 



80 THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

from time to time consulted the Senate prior to nego- 
tiation, and this right, although not often exercised, 
has been made use of at intervals down to the present 
day. The right of the Senate to amend has been 
always freely used at all periods of our history, and, 
of course, will continue to be exercised, because it is 
the only method by which the Senate can take part in 
the negotiations, as the Constitution intended it to do. 

This summary of the history of the treaty-making 
power as exercised by the Senate shows that the Sen- 
ate has not only not sought to extend its power over 
treaties unduly, or in doubtful directions, but that it 
has wisely allowed certain undoubted privileges to 
fall into abeyance and has contented itself with dis- 
cussion and amendment when a treaty came before it, 
and with the informal consultations which it has been 
the practice of most Presidents to hold with members 
of the Senate in regard to our foreign relations. 

This covers the relations of the Senate with the 
Executive in regard to its executive functions of 
confirming nominations and of ratifying treaties. 
It only remains now to consider the relations of 
the Senate with the House, and there is only one 
point in the Constitution where the powers of either 
House are restrained. That is the clause which gives 
to the House of Representatives the sole right to orig- 
inate bills to raise revenue. In all other respects the 
Senate and the House are upon an absolute legislative 



THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 81 

equality. This right of the House thus given in the 
Constitution has, of course, never been questioned, nor 
has the right of the Senate to make unlimited amend- 
ments to bills to raise revenue ever been successfully 
contested, but the practice has grown up of allowing 
the House to originate not only bills to raise revenue, 
but also the great appropriation bills which provide for 
the expenditure of the public money. The Senate has 
an undoubted right to originate any appropriation bill, 
large or small, and it frequently passes bills carrying 
an appropriation for some single and specific object, 
such as the construction of a light-house or of a public 
building, but at the same time the Senate has, without 
Serious resistance, conceded to the House the sole right 
to originate the great appropriation bills, although its 
own right to originate such measures is the same as that 
of the lower branch. That this is a wise practice, I think 
few persons will doubt, but it certainly does not show 
on the part of the Senate a desire to usurp authority. 
Thus it appears that both in relation to the Exec- 
utive and the House of Representatives the Senate 
has not sought to extend its constitutional powers, 
but has, on the contrary, refrained from the exer- 
cise of some undoubted rights and has allowed 
others to rest in abeyance. Yet there can be no 
doubt that it is equally true that the power of the 
Senate has grown enormously in the one hundred 
years and more of our history. The influence of 



82 THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

the Senate in legislation and in all departments of 
government is much greater than at the beginning, 
and far exceeds that of the House ; but this is not due 
to any usurpations on the part of the Senate, as has 
been shown by the preceding review of the history of 
its constitutional functions. The increase in the im- 
portance, weight, and power of the Senate is due pri- 
marily to its inherent strength, and this strength rests 
upon the manner in which it was endowed by the 
framers of the Constitution. With equal authority 
in legislation, with executive functions which involve 
all appointments to office and all our foreign relations, 
it was inevitable that as the country and the govern- 
ment grew the power of the Senate should increase 
more largely than that of any other branch of the 
government, for the simple reason that its original 
opportunity for growth was greater. This increase of 
power in the Senate has undoubtedly been stimulated 
by the fact that the rigid rules necessary in the more 
numerous branch of Congress has prevented the House 
from doing many important things which the Sen- 
ate, with its easy methods of conducting business, 
could readily take up. Many matters from which the 
House excluded itself by its own rules were in this 
way thrown into the possession of the Senate, which 
is a sure method of enhancing legislative power. In 
the same way, although the support of the entire Con- 
gress is necessary to a successful administration, no 



THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 83 

President Ccan get on without the Senate, even if he 
has the House with him, because it is always within 
the power of the Senate, if it is so disposed, to hamper 
the Executive without going into open opposition, both 
in administration, through the offices, and in foreign 
relations, through its treaty-making power. Very 
naturally, therefore, Presidents are always anxious 
to be on the best terms with the Senators, who are 
their constitutional advisers, and for this reason as 
Executive power has expanded with the growth of the 
the nation and the extension of the government, the 
power of the Senate has gone hand in hand with it. 

The Senate is to-day the most powerful single 
chamber in any legislative body in the world, but 
this power, which is shown daily by the wide at- 
tention to all that is said and done in the Senate 
of the United States, is not the product of selfish 
and cunning usurpations on the part of an ambi- 
tious body. It is due to the original constitution 
of the Senate, to the fact that the Senate repre- 
sents States, to the powers conferred upon it at 
the outset by the makers of the Constitution, to 
its permanency of organization, and to the combi- 
nation of legislative, executive, and judicial func- 
tions, which set it apart from all other legislative 
bodies. "Without the assent of the Senate no bill 
can become law, no office can be filled, no treaty 
ratified. The most important bills are largely the 



84 THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

work of the Senate, owing not only to its large 
powers, but to its liberty of debate and amendment 
j)ossible in a body of the size of the Senate, and very 
difficult in a body as large as the House. In the Sen- 
ate, to take very recent instances, the bill for the Isth- 
mian canal was finally made and the Railroad Rate 
bill vitally changed and improved after a very able 
and elaborate discussion extending over many weeks. 
In the Senate the long debate upon the Philippine 
government bill disposed of the question so entirely 
that it was not heard of in the ensuing campaign. 
The House, in 1894, initiated, made, and passed the 
Wilson tariff bill. But the Senate re-made the bill 
and it was the Senate bill which without the altera- 
tion of a single line became law against the bitter 
opposition of both the House and the Executive. 

Contests over nominations are rare and rejections 
of Executive nominations still rarer because Presidents, 
following the theory of the Constitution, almost always 
consult Senators about them beforehand. But the 
power of the Senate to take part through amend- 
ment in making treaties is freely and largely ex- 
ercised. The amendments of the Senate to the 
first Hay-Pauncefote treaty relating to the Isth- 
mian canal were rejected by England, but the 
second Hay-Pauncefote treaty embodied everything 
sought by the Senate in its amendments to the 
first, and was therefore ratified by an overwhelm- 



THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 85 

ing majority. Without the assent of the Senate 
Congress cannot declare war and the President 
cannot make peace. The United States went into 
the Spanish war upon the Senate resolutions, and 
the fate of the treaty of peace negotiated by the 
President depended upon the ratification of the Sen- 
ate. The Senate is the tribunal before which every 
officer of the United States impeached for high crimes 
and misdemeanors must come for trial. 

Administrations come and go, Houses assemble and 
disperse. Senators change, but the Senate is always 
there in the Capitol, and always organized, with an 
existence unbroken since 1789. As the government 
of three millions of people gathered upon the Atlantic 
seaboard has expanded into the government of eighty 
millions, masters of a continent and stretching forth 
to distant islands, the power of that branch of the 
government which was most highly endowed by the 
makers of the Constitution has grown proportionately. 
How vast the national growth has been, the world 
knows, and the growth of the United States Senate in 
power, authority, and influence has gone with it step 
by step and hand in hand. All this influence and 
authority in the Senate are due to the powers con- 
ferred upon it by its creators, by that remarkable 
body of men who, in the summer of 1787, framed at 
Philadelphia the Constitution of the United States. 



HISTORY 1 

It has been wisely and wittily said that '^' one fact 
is gossip and two related facts are history," an aph- 
orism very characteristic of the scientific age in which 
it was uttered. But the saying, with all its truth, 
like many other brilliant generalizations, may easily 
be pressed too far, and contains an implication which 
is anything but sound. It may be quite true that 
collections of unrelated facts, whether trivial or im- 
portant, or of facts presented without any philosophi- 
cal sense or any " look before or after," merit their 
definition as " gossip " ; yet we should do very wrong 
to underestimate this same " gossip," upon which, in 
common parlance, the name history is so often be- 
stowed. History of the " gossip " variety is, to begin 
with, the foundation of all other history, upon which 
it will be necessary to say something more later. 
"Gossip," moreover, whether light or serious, is in 
its best forms, especially in the guise of memoirs, 
biographies, and personal anecdotes, extremely enter- 

^ This essay was written as an introduction to the series entitled " The 
History of the Nations " published by John D. Morris & Co., of Philadel- 
phia, to whose kindness I am indebted for permission to reprint it here. 
Copyright 1904, Henry Cabot Lodge. Copyright 1905, John D. 
Morris & Co. 



HISTORY 87 

taining. While it is read, perhaps, only for the sake 
of reading, it helps us to enjoy life and may also 
teach us to endure it. It has, too, a real value in an 
instructive way, although how great that value shall 
be depends upon him who receives the information 
rather than upon the writer thereof. Even if one 
gathers from " gossip " nothing but an unphilosophi- 
cal, unscientific knowledge of people and events, much 
is gained ; for the man who knows something of the 
history of the race and of those who have played a 
part in the past not only has widened his own interest 
in the world about him, but, other things being equal, 
is a proportionately more agreeable companion to 
those whom he encounters in the journey of life. 
Dr. Johnson on more than one occasion defended 
desultory reading, to which he himself was very 
prone, and a wiser man than he laid it down as a 
maxim many years before that " reading maketh a 
full man." Therefore, let us not give way too much 
to the nineteenth-century contention about scientific 
history, with its array of causes and deductions, 
theories and results, or to that other dogma of the 
same period, much in favor with writers who lack 
the historic imagination, that " picturesque " history 
is a poor and trivial thing, and that, above all, history 
must be " judicial " — a bit of cant quite as objec- 
tionable as that concerning the " dignity of history " 
which imposed upon our ancestors and which we have 



88 HISTORY 

laughed out of court. There was a good deal of 
sound truth in Byron's remark about Mitford : 
" Having named his sins, it is but fair to state his 
virtues — learning, research, wrath, and partiality. I 
call the latter virtues in a writer because they make 
him write in earnest." The history, indeed, to be 
defined as "gossip," or which remains or becomes 
" gossip " in the mind of him who reads, has also its 
very real merits of entertainment and of instruction 
as well as of imparting a knowledge which, however 
desultory and disconnected, is a good thing for him 
who has it and makes the possessor thereof more de- 
sirable to his fellows. The " Memoirs of St. Simon " 
may be in themselves the merest gossip that was ever 
set down, as they are certainly the most copious ; but 
he who has looked upon these vivid pictures of a 
vanished society, whether he is imaginative enough 
to see shining upon them the red light of after years 
or not, has enlarged his own mind, widened his own 
interests, quickened his own intelligence, and made 
himself more attractive to others by following across 
these many pages the pageant of the great Louis and 
his court. 

We may, indeed, go much further, if we would do 
full justice to "gossip," by remembering what has 
already been suggested, that the worth of any record 
of the past, no matter how trivial or fond, depends 
not merely upon the mind of the writer, but upon 



HISTORY 89 

that of the reader as well. According to the canons 
of those modern extremists who would make history 
as destitute of literary quality as a museum of com- 
parative anatomy, Herodotus and Suetonius, Joinville 
and Froissart, Pepys and Walpole and Franklin would 
be rejected with contempt as historians and set down 
as mere retailers of idle " gossip " or, at best, rather 
untrustworthy " original sources." It may be readily 
admitted that not one of them ever attempted to trace 
properly the sequence of cause and effect or to draw 
a truly scientific deduction. They were all probably 
quite innocent of any knowledge of their duties in 
that respect ; yet not only the world but history in 
the truest sense would be much poorer and certainly 
much duller without them. The infinite charm which 
they all possess — from the ancient Greek, wandering 
about his little world, tablets in hand and ears open 
to the tales of the temple, the court, or the market 
place, down to the American boy seeking employment 
as a printer in London, where he was one day to 
determine the fate of empires — attracts and will 
always attract every one who cares for literature and 
to whom humanity and humor and the life of a dead 
past appeal. To those who look with considerate 
eyes into these old writers of tales, these purvey- 
ors of " gossip," these simple chroniclers and de- 
lightfully egotistic diarists, there rise up pictures of 
times long past, of social conditions and modes of 



90 HISTORY 

thought long dead, as well as revelations of human 
character and motives, rich in suggestions of historic 
cause and effect and more fertile in explanation of 
the fate and meaning of man upon earth than acres 
of catalogued facts scientifically classified, or reams 
of calendared state papers arranged with antiquarian 
skill. The catalogues and calendars are work of 
solid value, yet they have no importance until the 
seeing eye of the real historian has torn out the heart 
of their mystery. The gossip of the Greek and the 
Roman, of the medieval chroniclers and the eighteenth- 
century diarists, have delighted and instructed thou- 
sands who never write and to whom the solemn 
words " scientific history " have no meaning. At the 
same time, to those who would seek the deeper mean- 
ings and link together cause and effect, they offer 
far more than barren collections of indiscriminate 
facts, no matter how well or how scientifically ar- 
ranged. Herodotus may be loose and inaccurate, and 
Suetonius may be malignant and filled with error, 
but what light shines from the one upon the ancient 
civilizations of Asia Minor and Egypt, and how could 
we ever realize the dark shadows which overhung the 
glories of the Caesars witliout the grim pictures of the 
other ? We should fare ill in any attempt to under- 
stand from mouldering parchments alone the wonder- 
ful century which gave to France her royal saint and 
the art which produced the Sainte-Chapelle if we could 



HISTORY 91 

not read the simple words of Joinville. The English 
and French wars live for us in the rambling pages of 
Froissart ; Pepys, besides laying bare a human soul, 
tells more of what the Restoration really was than 
all the professed historians then or since ; in Walpole, 
greatest of English letter-writers, we know the Eng- 
land of the second and third Georges ; and in Franklin 
we can discover the secret of the loss of the American 
colonies. In all alike we get the atmosphere of the 
times, we learn to know man as he then was in those 
various countries and widely separated periods. Such 
knowledge can be obtained only from men who had 
literary power, observation, and imagination. With- 
out such knowledge " scientific history " cannot make 
a beginning even, cannot advance a step. With it the 
seeker for cause and effect can find as long a chain as 
he may wish to forge and as many deductions as he 
may desire to draw. The " gossip " which is also 
literature is the best foundation for history, and that 
which is not literature is, after all, merely a collection 
of the unclassified facts so dear to the scientific histo- 
rian, who thinks they can be made alive by arrange- 
ment alone. Let us not, then, be too quick to throw 
aside " gossip " without discrimination, for when it 
has a high literary quality it will outlive scientific 
history in the hearts of men, and will, in the long 
run, teach them more about themselves and about 
their race than the wisest collector and classifier of 



92 HISTORY 

facts who ever lived, because men will read the 
" gossip " and fall asleep over the reasoned catalogue. 
So much, then, for the unscientific, unphilosophical, 
disconnected, desultory history, whether great litera- 
ture or not, which we are quite ready to call "gossip," 
and to speak of patronizingly as an inferior thing, but 
which most of us in our heart of hearts really like 
better than any other. Let us leave it with all good 
wishes for the pleasure it has given us and the pro- 
found instruction it has offered to those who seek in- 
struction diligently, and come to the superior function 
of history, the true history which, relying solely upon 
itself and not upon the reader, aspires not only to 
instruct and inform, but to explain man to himself. 
Of its importance there can be no doubt ; still less of 
its seriousness. History in this aspect may easily fail 
to be amusing ; if it is not literature also, it will prob- 
ably fail to be anything else, but properly written it 
cannot be otherwise than profoundly important and in- 
teresting. Here in this History of the Nations, and 
in countless other volumes, lie the garnered facts, ever 
being increased and ever shifting in their propor- 
tionate importance and in their relation to each other. 
What is the purpose of history in dealing with these 
facts, if in itself it is to be of any real value in the 
largest sense? There have been many answers to 
this question, many essays, most of them, it must be 
confessed, rather dreary, replying at length as to the 



HISTORY 93 

functions and uses of history. Setting aside as alien 
to what we are now considering all that vast and 
valuable mass which may be classified as " gossip," 
and which is at the lowest estimate certainly raw 
material, the object of history or of the study of his- 
tory may be briefly stated. There is, to begin with, 
the old, classical, and conventional phrase that history 
is philosophy teaching by example, which means little 
or nothing. Napoleon said that " history was the 
fable agreed upon," the quick utterance of a great 
genius who had never gone beyond the "gossip." 
Disraeli, readiest and most epigrammatic, perhaps, of 
the more modern public men — certainly the most 
un-English — saw use in history only as an explana- 
tion of the past, an excellent definition, but so limi- 
ted as to make history of but little worth if it cannot 
pass these bounds. Emerson, in his vaguely beautiful 
essay, defines history as the record of man, tells us 
that we are history, and that history is ourselves ; in 
more prosaic words, that history is the explanation of 
the present. Add this definition to that of Disraeli 
and we have advanced a goodly distance, but history 
must be yet more and must go further still if it is to 
fulfil its whole function. 

In a very recent essay Mr. George Trevelyan has 
described the function of history in a manner as fine 
as his conception of the work of the historian is noble 
and true. The three functions of history he defines 



94 HISTORY 

as teaching the lessons of political wisdom, spreading 
the knowledge of past ideas and of great men, and, 
most important of all, " causing us in moments of 
diviner solitude to feel the poetry of time." The 
first two functions are of great worth, and it was 
never more necessary to preach their virtue and ne- 
cessity than now, but they are the more immediate 
achievements of history, inseparable from it when 
rightly written, and do not reach that larger and 
more ultimate purpose which I am seeking to find and 
express here. It is in the third aspect that Mr. 
Trevelyan touches history in its highest range, when 
he says that it ought to make us feel the poetry of 
time and the passing of the race through many epochs 
along the highway of eternity. 

" Each changing place with that which goes before, 
In sequent toil all forward do contend." 

Such is the poetry of time, and there lies hid the 
secret of man and his relation to the universe. 

To be more explicit, history must, it is true, explain 
the past as Disraeli wished, and the present, as Emer- 
son desired. But that is not enough. Perhaps it is 
impossible that it should do more ; but history, if it is 
carried to the full height of our conception, ought 
also to enable us to see into the future, to calculate in 
some degree the movement of the race as we now cal- 
culate the orbit of the stars, and read in the past, 



HISTORY 95 

whether dim or luminous^, a connected story and a 
pervading law. In other words, history in the ulti- 
mate analysis ought to give us a theory of the uni- 
verse as well as of human life and action. Has this 
been done ? Have these masses of facts, gathered of 
late with such ant-like diligence, yet been brought 
into such connection? Have they been so ordered 
and mastered as to tell a coherent story and thus ex- 
plain to us the course of human life and conduct ? If 
they have not, then history has thus far failed of its 
final purpose in whole or in part. 

In the nineteenth century just closed we have gone 
clearly beyond the simple-minded writers of annals 
and chronicles. We have learned, indeed, to regard 
annals and chronicles, as well as biographies and sta- 
tistics and every phase and form of human activity, 
as primarily so much raw material, so many observa- 
tions to be sifted and compared and grouped until 
they afford a theory or explanation of some sort for 
the man or the incident or the events to which they 
relate. But have we by this method as yet deduced 
a result which really explains at once the past and the 
present, which makes us not only feel the poetry of 
time, but which also throws a bright light along the 
pathway of the future ? Have we attained in any 
degree to a working hypothesis which shall make 
clear to us the development and fate of man upon 
earth ? Unless we can answer these questions quite 



96 HISTORY 

clearly in the affirmative then history has not yet ful- 
filled her whole mission, and still sits by the roadside 
like the Sphinx waiting for the traveller who can 
guess her riddle. It is a riddle worth guessing. None 
more so. The genius who will draw out from the 
welter of recorded time a theory which will explain 
to man both himself and his relation to the universe 
need fear comparison with no other who has ever 
lived, for he must not only make the great discovery, 
but he must clothe it in words which will live as liter- 
ature and touch it with an imagination which will 
reach the heart of humanity and endure like the 
poetry of those who sang for the people when the 
world was young. 

Let us see, however, what has been accomplished ; 
let us at least try to measure " the petty done, the 
undone vast." We have brought together immense 
masses of facts, in some cases far too many — so 
much so that their very density has caused men not 
infrequently to lose their way among details, and, 
having deprived them of the sense of proportion, has 
led them to mistake the particular for the general. 
We are, indeed, more likely now to suffer from having 
too many facts than too few. By no possibility can 
we have, in anything which relates to human affairs, 
all the facts. Even some of the most tangible and 
external escape us; and of the tangle of passions, 
emotions, and desires which so largely determine the 



HISTORY 97 

course of human events we can know but little, and 
must always be content with large inferences and 
with a psychology of the masses, because that of in- 
dividuals, except in a few isolated instances, is lost to 
us forever. Unable, therefore, to know all the facts, 
we must proceed by selection and by generalizations 
based on those dominating types which have been 
chosen through the instinct and the imagination, the 
very qualities which no amount of mere training will 
give. The besetting danger of the time lies in the 
tendency to reverence mere heaps of facts and to treat 
one fact, because it is such, as equal in value to every 
other — a doctrine much beloved by those who would 
separate history from literature and make it nothing 
more than a series of measurements or a classified 
catalogue. Facts in themselves have no value except 
as the material from which the men of high and co- 
ordinating intelligence can, by selecting and rejecting, 
bring forth a theory, a philosophy, or a story which 
the world will be able to read and understand because 
it is helped to do so by all the charm and all the light 
which literary art and historic imagination can give. 
A " scientific history," crammed with facts, well ar- 
ranged, but unreadable, and at the same time devoid 
of art and selection, is, perhaps, as sad a monument 
of misspent labor as human vanity can show. None 
the less, after all deductions, the accumulation of 
facts, if properly used and then supplemented by 



98 HISTORY 

all the resources of literary art, is absolutely essential 
to the highest history, for laws governing human de- 
velopment rest, like those of science, in large degree 
on the number of recorded observations, and find in 
that way control and correction. This is especially 
true in the case of archasology, which is daily adding 
so enormously to our knowledge of early civilizations 
in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Asia Minor, as well as in 
the Greek islands and peninsula, and which thus 
enables us to make those comparisons, stretching over 
long periods of time, upon which any stable theory 
of the movement of civilized mankind must ulti- 
mately rest. To this must also be added the scientific 
investigation into the condition of prehistoric man 
and of those primitive tribes and races who are our 
prehistoric contemporaries, from which alone it is pos- 
sible to draw the widest deductions as to the primary 
development of what we call civilized man. To put 
this first proposition in a few words, we have in the last 
one hundred years gathered, and in a large measure ar- 
ranged intelligently, the necessary material to which we 
are still adding, and which is an essential preliminary 
to writing history in the highest sense of the word. 

We have also passed definitely and finally out of 
the stage where history was considered too solemn 
and too dignified to have any of the attractions of 
what is frankly " gossip," and yet remained nothing 
but a stringing together of facts, as if they were 



HISTORY 99 

single beads, each separated from the others by a 
dividing and impassable knot. The habit is now 
ingrained in all writers of history, even if they are 
merely dealing with an episode or preparing a mono- 
graph, to lead up from cause to effect, to point out 
the sources of an event, the culmination of the vari- 
ous compelling forces and the ultimate results, or else 
to arrange the narrative in such wise that the reader 
must perforce draw his own deductions, and thus 
learn the lesson which the author desires to impart. 
This method of dealing with history varies, of course, 
most widely in the extent of its application. It may 
be applied to a single incident or to the occurrences 
of a few years ; or, on the other hand, it may stretch 
over the centuries, seeking in past generations the 
distant conditions from which sprang finally some 
great event ; or, again, it may strive to connect with 
the phenomena of our modern times remote causes 
which are dimly discerned in the dawn of civilization, 
and in this way establish a law which shall govern 
the entire movement of humanity. 

It is this search for cause and effect which has been 
the distinguishing feature of historical work in the 
nineteenth century. No doubt the practice has ex- 
isted, sporadically at least, since history began to be 
written ; but in the last century it became the domi- 
nant note, the ruling characteristic to which all writ- 
ers aspired, although naturally with varying degrees 

LOFC. 



100 HISTORY 

of success. That which we seek here is to estimate 
approximately to what point the increased knowledge, 
the multiplied observations, and the system of tracing 
out cause and effect have brought us on the road to 
fulfilling the highest function of history. We can see 
very readily that in the explanation of the past and 
the present much has been achieved. For example, 
the causes which led to the revolt of the American 
colonies against England, or to the French Revolu- 
tion, have been studied not only in the immediately 
preceding years, but have been patiently tracked 
through the centuries, and sought not merely in po- 
litical and economic conditions, but in the qualities, 
habits, and characteristics of the people, and in the 
attributes and ethnic peculiarities of the stocks from 
which these historic races were formed. The time 
when it was possible to treat great and violent 
changes of this kind as isolated events, growing 
suddenly out of surrounding conditions, has passed 
away never to return. 

Having thus reached the point where it is not only 
possible but habitual to explain philosophically and 
on logical principles a past event, it is but a short 
step to find in past events, properly arranged and 
treated, the explanation of the present in any given 
country, or in any group of countries similar, if not 
identical, in race and in the character of their civili- 
zation. It is also true that modern history, advanc- 



HISTORY 101 

ing from the explanation of a given event, or of an 
important era, by tracing its causes through a long 
succession of years, has gone on to the work of fol- 
lowing out through the entire historic period tenden- 
cies of thought or art, of literature or morals, as well 
as the religious, economic, and political movements of 
mankind. The results of these investigations have 
been more illuminating, probably, than anything else 
which has been accomplished. From these researches, 
which have embraced anthropology, philology, psy- 
chology, literature, and archasology, as well as history 
proper, a brilliant light has been cast upon much that 
before seemed shrouded in hopeless darkness, and a 
multitude of problems whicli puzzled the will and 
baffled the imagination have been made plain. From 
this source has come the theory of myths and folk- 
lore ; the development of the identity of certain fun- 
damental religious beliefs in all the many families of 
mankind; the reduction to a very small number of 
the absolutely different races of men; a knowledge 
of the often unexplained migrations of vast bodies of 
people, of the economic conditions, the trade, the com- 
merce, the industries, and the discoveries of minerals, 
which have played such a large and so often a con- 
trolling part in human affairs, and of the military 
and political attributes and tendencies which have so 
largely, in appearance at least, determined the fate of 
states and empires. 



102 HISTORY 

Yet the final question is still unanswered. The 
world still awaits a theory, or an explanation, of the 
movement of mankind as a whole which shall make 
clear the entire past, show whence we have come, 
why we have marched in the manner recorded along 
the highways of time, whither we are going, and in 
what direction we must go, by a proof as resistless as 
the fall of the apple to the ground, which, as we as- 
sert, conclusively demonstrates what we call the law 
of gravitation. 

To reach this ultimate goal we must have a theory 
of the universe, and the necessity of such a theory 
has been perceived more or less dimly, or more or 
less clearly, by all serious historians from the time 
when history first began to be written with any other 
purpose than that of making a brief abstract and 
chronicle of the time. The theory of the universe 
and of life upon which historians proceeded either 
deliberately or unconsciously down to the latter half 
of the eighteenth century was, broadly speaking, the 
theological theory. The doctrines, the dogmas, and 
the formulas of theologians and priests furnished the 
underlying theory upon which historians worked out 
their results, and this was as true of the East as of 
the West, of Asia as of Europe, of the writers of an- 
tiquity as of the schoolmen of the Middle Ages. In 
the last analysis history fell back upon theology, and 
accepted its formulas and its philosophy as giving 



HISTORY 103 

the final answer whenever the historian sought to set 
forth an explanation of man's existence upon earth, 
or to show the connection and relation of events in 
the life of humanity. 

In the eighteenth century the spirit of scepticism 
and inquiry rose up and took possession of the 
thought of Western civilization. In dealing with 
history its resources were meagre, its material was 
limited, and its methods crude. Voltaire, who rep- 
resented that sceptical spirit in its most powerful 
and concentrated form, and who exercised a wide 
and profound influence to a degree which it is now 
difficult even to imagine, was simply destructive. He 
struck at the theological conceptions aud explana- 
tions of past events with penetrating force, and with 
weapons of the keenest edge, but the simplicity of his 
attack is only equalled by his ignorance of the real 
meaning of the traditions and habits of thought at 
which he aimed his blows. None the less the work 
of the eighteenth century was effective so far as it 
went. It tore the theological theories of the universe 
to tatters, and scattered the fragments to the four 
winds of heaven. It was unable to replace that which 
it destroyed, but it cleared the ground, and to this 
inheritance the next century succeeded. The old 
theories were discredited. The way was open to 
construct a new one. 

The nineteenth century was pre-eminently scien^ 



104 HISTORY 

tific. Science during that period was the ruling force 
in the domain of thought, and its discoveries and ad- 
vances are the monuments of its marvellous success. 
But its influence has spread far beyond its own prov- 
ince. In every direction the methods of science have 
been adopted, and its standards set up as the best 
methods and the loftiest standards for all forms of 
thought and inquiry. History, therefore, during the 
last hundred years has sought to make itself and to 
call itself scientific as the highest quality at which it 
could aim ; and the devotion to facts, the search for 
truth at all costs, the rigid deductions, coldly regard- 
less of sentiment or prejudice, have all been attributes 
borrowed from science, and of immense value to his- 
torical results. The study of history pursued in this 
way, and carried into adjoining fields of research like 
anthropology, archaeology, and philology, has brought 
about a complete readjustment of many of our ideas 
as to the development of man and his relations to the 
universe. Indeed, it is scarcely realized how pene- 
trating the influence of history governed by scientific 
methods has been, and what a revolution it has 
wrought, for the most part quite insensibly, in all 
our conceptions as to the existence, meaning, and 
fate of the human race. 

That this has been accomplished at a loss, and a 
serious loss, to history as literature can hardly be 
denied. Modern history of the purely scientific and 



HISTORY 105 

judicial variety has thus far been unable fully to sus- 
tain the literary glories of the past. Thucydides and 
Tacitus and Gibbon were by no means wanting in a 
theory of the universe, or of the life of man. They 
were masters of their subjects and of their material, 
and they were also most distinctly philosophers, rea- 
soners, and thinkers, although not given over to mod- 
ern scientific methods ; yet they still stand alone and 
unrivalled in literature, and would wonder greatly to 
be informed that we cannot have serious history or a 
philosophy of life until we cease to be picturesque. 
They would marvel even more to be told that it is 
the fashion to hold that we must be "judicial" to 
the point of never taking sides, and usually of sus- 
taining a paradox ; that if we would really be histo- 
rians we must assume that the accepted opinion is 
wrong because it is accepted, and must close our eyes 
firmly to the splendid pageant of the years which 
have gone if we would win the praise of the antiqua- 
rian, the specialist, or the learned society. We owe 
much to the adoption of scientific methods in history ; 
but if we give way to the intolerable dogma that his- 
tory, in order to be really scientific, must divest itself 
of all connection with literature, it would be better 
never to have attempted those methods, and to have 
blundered along in the old way. When Mr. Bury, 
the Regius Professor of History at Cambridge, an- 
nounces that " history is not a branch of literature," 



106 HISTORY 

he advances a proposition which, if adopted, would 
kill history, and which could by no possibility give 
us science in its place. Imagination is no doubt one 
important quality among others in the really great 
men of science, but it is absolutely essential to the 
great historian, for without imagination no history 
worthy of the name can be written. Very valuable 
results can be achieved without it in the physical 
sciences, because their phenomena are devoid of the 
spiritual and emotional elements ; but the history of 
man is in large measure governed, or modified, by 
passion, sentiment, and emotion, and cannot be 
gauged, or understood, without the sympathy and 
the perception which only imagination and the dra- 
matic instinct can give. Moreover, history is utterly 
vain unless men can learn something from it ; they 
cannot learn unless they read, and they will neither 
read nor understand unless the theory or the doctrine 
drawn forth from the winnowed facts is presented to 
them with all the grace and force which style can 
give, and with all the resources of a beautiful literary 
art. The worst enemies of scientific methods are 
those who would, in the name of science, reduce 
history to a sifted dust-heap, and who decry the 
art of literature because they cannot master it, 
although without it history has never yet been 
written, and never will be able to speak to men, 
or to give them the explanation of their existence, 



HISTORY 107 

if that great secret is ever discovered in all its 
completeness. 

But the literary side of historical development, 
without which it cannot continue, is not, after all, 
what concerns us here further than to point out its 
absolute necessity, if we would effect anything of 
lasting worth. It is to the achievements of modern 
scientific history, not yet ruined by its unreasoning 
devotees, that we must look for the dial hand of 
progress ; and however dryly the fashion of the mo- 
ment or personal incapacity may have compelled his- 
torians to state the conclusions thus reached, here are 
to be found the latest steps which have been taken 
toward the goal of that history which shall give us, 
if such a thing is possible, the full explanation which 
we seek. It is along the lines followed by modern 
history that we must proceed in our quest, but thus 
far these lines have been separate. One subject or 
one tendency has in turn and each by itself been 
traced out from the beginning, and the theory or law 
which has governed in each case has frequently been 
evolved and stated with the utmost care and acute- 
ness. But the lines have not yet converged, the 
theories have not yet been grouped, the various laws 
still await the genius who shall cast them into a code. 

The stupendous difficulties of the task must not bo 
underestimated. Perhaps it is beyond the power of 
man to develop and state a great law of life, a com- 



108 HISTORY 

prehensive theory of the universe, when he must per- 
force rest it not merely upon a vast mass of recorded 
observations and classified facts, but must throughout 
allow for that which no other scientific man need 
consider — the unending perturbations caused by 
human passion, human emotion, and unreasoning 
animal instincts. One thing alone is certain : no 
single theory dealing with one set of facts and one 
set of passions and tendencies can ever explain every- 
thing. The forces which have started the great 
migrations, the religious passions, the political apti- 
tudes, can each explain much ; the economic move- 
ment can probably explain more than any single clew, 
and yet no one of them alone is sufficient to make 
clear all that has happened and weave the many 
threads into a final answer to the riddle of the 
Sphinx, who waits and watches by the roadside as the 
procession of mankind marches by in endless files. 
Yet is there here no reason for discouragement. 
Every failure of a proper attempt to reach that final 
and complete solution of the great enigma which his- 
tory alone can give, if it is ever to be given at all, has 
advanced us in knowledge. It is much better to look 
at what has been accomplished than to sigh over the 
undone, fold our hands in despair and content our- 
selves by saying, like the scientific professor of his- 
tory, that all we can do is to heap up more facts for 
distant generations to use. The answer may not yet 



HISTORY 109 

have been found ; but the light is growing brighter, 
and the prospect of attaining to a complete reply, if 
no nearer, seems at least clearer than ever before. 
Even to realize where we fall short is, if not very 
hopeful, very instructive, and opens the only possible 
path to future success. 

The theological theory, then, which was so long 
dominant has been swept away, and history has fallen 
under the control of scientific processes. It has not 
only assimilated the methods of science, but it has 
striven to deduce from its own phenomena the doc- 
trines which science in the latter half of the nine- 
teenth century adopted and promulgated. It has, in 
short, substituted for the theological theory that of 
science. So far as it has had any definite purpose it 
has aimed to show, like the science of the last fifty 
years, that the true explanation of man's existence 
and movements is mechanical; that at bottom we 
must fall back on the " fortuitous concourse of atoms," 
and that a continuous evolution is the sole guide in 
the maze of human affairs, as it has been partially 
shown to be in the animal world. And now, even 
while history is advancing on these lines, science is 
pausing in doubt, the mechanical theory seems to be 
breaking down, the "fortuitous course of atoms" is 
being abandoned, the limitations of evolution are be- 
coming constantly clearer, the younger biologists no 
longer trust implicitly the dogmas of the later years, 



110 



HISTORY 



and Lord Kelvin announces that the last word of the 
latest science indicates a reversion to the doctrine of 
a governing law. Is history to go on in the old 
ways, which but yesterday were new, or is it to pause, 
as science has paused, and turn again, not to the old 
theological theory, but to one which involves a 
general and permanent law of the universe and 
of life? 

What has history herself to say, speaking from her 
own experience and enlightened by her own efforts? 
What have the profound research and the acute de- 
ductions of these later years to produce by way of 
solving the problem of what her future course shall 
be ? Has history been able to show a process of evo- 
lution so continuous as at once to demonstrate that 
men from the beginning, despite many aberrations, 
have moved along one line, compelled thereto by en- 
vironment and by their physical and mental structure, 
thus proving that humanity has been governed by 
mechanical processes as completely as science very 
recently held all physical developments to be, whether 
in the heavens above or in the earth benea.th ? Or, on 
the other hand, has history, like science, apparently 
failed to maintain the meclianical theory and found 
the " fortuitous concourse of atoms " insufficient to 
support the facts which she herself has brought to 
light? Has the Darwinian doctrine of evolution as 
applied to the events of history disclosed there also 



HISTORY 111 

limitations which make it appear incomplete and at 
best tentative? 

Looking broadly at the situation as it is to-day, the 
story of man upon earth seems to fall into two divi- 
sions, the prehistoric and the historic periods, the 
former reaching back through unnumbered years 
possibly to the tertiary rock, if we may believe the 
traces found in Australia, the latter so brief in com- 
parison as to seem but as yesterday or as a watch in 
the night. The earliest knowledge, however, which 
can in any proper sense be called historical, or which 
in other words rests upon records of any sort, is im- 
parted to us by the remains of the civilizations of 
Egypt, Mesopotamia, and western Asia. These civi- 
lizations, as revealed to us by the latest archseological 
discoveries, appear to have been substantially at the 
point where we ourselves were a century ago, and if 
not complete were certainly in a stage of high devel- 
opment. How and by what processes that position 
was reached, we do not and probably can never know. 
A long road certainly had been travelled before it was 
attained. The starting-point is dim. The earliest 
human skulls which have been found do not differ 
more widely in size and shape from the skulls of men 
to-day than the skulls of several actually existent 
races vary from each other. They leave unbridged 
and substantially undiminished the gulf which yawns 
between the skulls of races now existent and the most 



112 HISTORY 

highly developed ape. Man, therefore, as we know 
him, is not fundamentally different physically from 
the earliest progenitor who can be distinctly recog- 
nized as a man, a liuman being in our sense of the 
word. But the gap between the earliest man known 
to us, between the man of the drift or the shell heap, 
for instance, and the neolithic man, is immense, 
although it is trifling compared to the chasm which 
separates the man of flints from the man who lived 
under the earliest Egyptian dynasties, who reared 
the first buildings by the Nile or who constructed the 
first palaces of Babylonia, drained the streets and 
houses of her cities and codified her laws. We find 
man at the outset with nothing apparently except the 
discovery of fire, although we must infer a period 
when even the use of fire was unknown ; and then 
we find him with weapons of stone, at first rudely and 
then ingeniously worked ; with pottery and with in- 
dications of some use of metals in the form of pins or 
copper models of stone implements for war or the 
chase. Then we plunge into darkness again, and when 
we emerge we behold a man possessed of language 
and written characters, who has organized society 
and government and enacted laws ; who has invented 
the wheel for locomotion, and mastered the applica- 
tion of animal or muscular power ; who has devel- 
oped a splendid architecture and a noble art; who 
understands engineering, carries on an extensive com- 



HISTORY 113 

merce, marshals armies and conducts wars with 
ordered legions. The distance from the man who 
applied and controlled fire, the greatest single dis- 
covery ever made, and from the later man who was 
able to chip stone, fabricate weapons, and make 
pottery, to the man who could do all which is re- 
vealed at the dawn of history, staggers imagination 
when we strive to guess at what had happened and 
been accomplished in the interval. We seem to pass 
at a single bound from the dimly conceived being 
who, stark naked or dressed perhaps in skins, was 
savage to a degree beyond our power of description, 
and who waged an unequal war with monstrous ani- 
mals, to men who are so like us in comparison with 
what had gone before, that it seems as if the solemn 
Egyptian kings and the makers of the winged bulls 
were our own kin and lived but yesterday instead of 
dwelling on the misty verge of recorded time. In 
that long interval which elapsed between the earliest 
trace of man onward and upward from the discovery 
of fire to the time of these ancient civilizations, what 
happened ? By what steps had man, or rather certain 
tribes and races of men, climbed to such a height ? 
We do not know, probably we never shall know more 
than reasonable conjecture can tell ; yet the inference 
seems irresistible, inevitable we may almost say, that 
during that period of darkness there was a steady 
process of evolution advancing slowly but surely by 



114 HISTORY 

the discovery and development of forces which radi- 
cally changed the environment and all the conditions 
surrounding the race to a position where man was 
master of essentially all that he possessed a hundred 
years ago. These ancient civilizations and their suc- 
cessors ripen as we approach the Christian era. Their 
art was refined, their language was perfected, their 
literature attained to imperishable beauty ; they 
widened their geography and increased the sum of 
knowledge, but there was no radical change of envi- 
ronment, there were no new forces to compel such a 
change. In the earliest civilizations really known to 
us we find that men had arms and arts, architec- 
ture and letters, organized government and systems of 
laws ; commerce, war, armies, means of transporta- 
tion by land and water. All these things they per- 
fected down to the fall of the Roman empire; but 
they added no new force like fire or the wheel, like 
linguistic symbols or organized society, such as they 
had brought slowly forth in the prehistoric days. 

When the empire of Rome went to pieces Western 
Europe sank into a period of anarchy, in wliich all 
the arts, whether ornamental or economic, and all 
forms of organization retrograded, and the period 
known as the Dark Ages set in. The traditions 
of science and learning, of literature and art, were 
kept alive only by Byzantium in the East, where 
they were destined to disappear under the onset of 



HISTORY 115 

the Ottoman Turks, and by the Moors in Spain. 
Slowly and painfully new systems, new states, and 
a new social order were evolved from the welter 
of destruction which followed the downfall of Rome ; 
and out of these new movements came at last the 
Renaissance, the revival of learning, the junction 
of the present with the classical past, and thence 
modern civilization. But through all these chances 
and changes, alike through the rise and fall of Egypt 
and Chaldea, of Assyria and Persia, through the su- 
premacy of Greece and the final dominion of Rome, 
as well as through the Middle Ages and the growth 
of our modern civilization, there was no fundamental 
change in the conditions and achievements such as we 
find indicated at the close of the prehistoric period. 
No new forces had come into play to alter the devel- 
opment of man. States and empires had waxed and 
waned; there had been great migrations of peoples, 
great shiftings of the centres of military, political, 
and economic power. We can trace these move- 
ments, we know their causes, we understand the 
influence of mineral wealth and of trade routes, 
but the foundations are undisturbed. In the eigh- 
teenth century, as in the time of the earliest Egyptian 
dynasty, men still depend on themselves and on ani- 
mals as the source of power ; they have the wheel for 
transportation, the written word for communication ; 
they reap and sow and build and have literature and 



116 HISTORY 

the fine arts. The bounds of knowledge have widened, 
broadening far in the days of Greece and Rome, and 
then contracting after the fall of the empire only to 
widen again after the fourteenth century and then 
stretch farther and farther out with each succeeding 
year. Still there is no vital change. The art of war 
is revolutionized by the introduction of gunpowder, 
the acquisition and preservation of knowledge are 
made easy by the invention of printing ; but these 
two things apart, the man of the eighteenth century 
does not differ essentially from the Egyptian or the 
Babylonian, from the Greek or the Roman, in the con- 
ditions of life or in his relations to the earth and his 
fellow-men. He still travels with the horse on land 
and with the wind or the oar at sea. His journeys 
are still along paths and trails and roads or by canals, 
rivers, and ocean. He knows the earth and its extent 
more completely than the Roman, but it is probable 
that roads and methods of communication were better 
under Rome, so far as they extended at all, than they 
were a hundred years ago. One civilization has suc- 
ceeded another, new states have risen, old ones flour- 
ished and decayed ; the economic equilibrium has 
shifted and trade routes have altered, carrying pros- 
perity to one kingdom and ruin to another; the 
fine arts have taken on new forms and develop- 
ments among different peoples, have touched the 
heights, blazed with splendor, and gone out only 



HISTORY 117 

to shine again in some new home. But still there 
has been no fundamental change. No empire, no 
state, no civilization seems to have passed beyond 
a certain point which others had already achieved. 
The scene shifts, the accessories change, but the 
drama is the same. If there had been a steady 
and scientific evolution in the prehistoric period, 
after the close of that period the evolution of the 
most highly developed portions of mankind seems 
to have ceased. The movements are all sporadic, 
and never get beyond the point which the most 
ancient civilization, when it emerges from the dark- 
ness to greet our eyes, had in all essential things al- 
ready at hand. There is no indication that man has 
improved physically since the day when history began. 
That he has advanced in his moral attributes and con- 
ceptions under the influence of religion we can hardly 
refuse to believe, if we would, and the facts by any 
test furnish sufficient proof that man's attitude to his 
fellows is better and more sympathetic even if we have 
improved in no other way. On the other hand, al- 
though we know more, there can be no doubt that 
man is no stronger as an intellectual being than he 
was when Plato taught and Sophocles composed his 
tragedies, when Phidias carved and Zeuxis painted 
and Pericles fought and governed. In the fine arts, 
indeed, it is difficult to see that, except in rare in- 
stances, man has ever attained a higher standard 



118 HISTORY 

in sculpture or architecture, of which alone we are 
able to judge with certainty, than he reached in the 
earliest civilizations. 

It must always be carefully borne in mind that 
there is a broad distinction between the elaboration 
or perfection of an existing art or a discovered force 
and the successive introduction of new forces which 
lead on to a different structure of society and to con- 
ditions wholly different from what has gone before. 
The latter is a true scientific evolution, no matter how 
infinitesimal the advance or bow slow the movement 
which destroys the unfit and causes the survival of 
those fittest to survive. The mere elaboration or 
perfection of existent arts and forces, although they 
may exhibit in a distinctly limited way the operations 
of the laws of evolution, do not, in the broad scientific 
sense, constitute a race evolution which can supply us 
with an explanation of the development of the race as 
a whole, or with a theory of the universe or of life. 
The discovery of the means by which fire could be 
applied and controlled whenever it occurred, changed 
all the conditions surrounding the race of men. It 
was a true evolutionary step in the development of 
the race, and the Promethean myth shows how the 
tremendous impression of its effects survived through 
ages the length of which we cannot calculate. The 
same may be said of tbe application of animal power, 
of the invention of written symbols, of the organiza- 



HISTORY 119 

tion of society, of the art of building. But the elab- 
oration and perfection of architecture, the refinement 
of written characters into a literature, the increase of 
size in boats or vessels when propulsion by wind or 
muscle had once been discovered are not an evolu- 
tionary progress of the race in any true sense, nor 
do they furnish a general law to explain the entire 
mystery of humanity. The men who first discovered 
the process of making bricks, and then the further 
possibility of so putting stones or bricks together as 
to make a permanent structure to shelter their gods, 
their dead or their living, took a long step on the 
path of evolution. But this step once taken, the 
men who built the temples of Egypt or of Nippur 
or the Lion Gate of Mycenae, the Parthenon of 
Athens, the Colosseum of Rome, or the Gothic 
cathedrals of France, were expressing the same in- 
vention in different forms, but they were not carry- 
ing forward at all the evolution of the race. These 
forms of surpassing strength, grandeur, and beauty 
were evolved, no doubt, from the principles of the 
rude beginnings which constituted the scientifically 
evolutionary step ; but it was the original discovery 
which was evolutionary and not the refinement and 
elaboration which followed and which failed to change 
the fundamental conditions of the race. It is very 
essential to keep clearly in mind the distinction be- 
tween the evolution of the race, as a whole, through 



120 HISTORY 

a vital change in environment and conditions necessi- 
tating a corresponding adaptation and alteration in 
the life of man and in the organization of society, 
and on the other hand the evolution of a given 
art or society, or of an economic structure or po- 
litical state. From the discovery of the means by 
which a fire could be kindled and controlled to the 
lamps of the Roman or the Greek is a long process of 
evolution in the use of fire, but does not touch the 
general evolution of the race. The original discovery 
changed vitally the conditions which surrounded man 
and forced him into a new environment to which he 
was obliged slowly to adapt himself, but the improve- 
ments and extensions of the use of fire had in them- 
selves no such effect. The process by which men 
advanced from picture writing to the plays of Eurip- 
ides and Aristophanes is of great importance in the 
evolution of language, but it was the invention of a 
symbol for human speech which altered the environ- 
ment of man and not the improvements and develop- 
ments of such symbols. The secret we would wring 
from the past is not the law governing the evolution 
of any particular state or people, of any especial art 
or form of social organization, but what the forces are 
which in their union have changed the environment 
of humanity and which will give us a law that explains 
the entire movement of the race, solves the mystery 
of existence and defines with a single answer man's 



HISTORY 121 

relation to the universe. We can readily understand 
the difference between the essentially evolutionary step 
and that which is only an elaboration of a discovery 
already made, if we can imagine the world divested 
of all that has come into it through the agency of 
steam and electricity and then contrast it with that 
which existed under the ancient civilizations. The 
men who separated the American colonies from Eng- 
land and carried through the revolution in France, 
events which together changed the entire political 
system of America and western Europe, possessed 
gunpowder and printing, but beyond these two things 
they did not differ essentially in their environment 
from the men of the ancient civilizations. Like the 
Egyptian, the Assyrian, the Greek, and the Roman, 
they still depended upon the muscles of men and ani- 
mals or on the wind, the rivers, or the tides for power. 
They propelled their boats by sails or oars, they trav- 
elled on horseback ; and in war and peace their trans- 
port rested on wheels, which they caused to revolve 
by the force of draft animals or of men. After de- 
veloping new forms of architecture they had reverted 
to the ancient models, and it may be safely said that 
they never surpassed the work of the builders of the 
Parthenon or of the tombs and temples of Egypt. 
Modern engineering has yet to show whether it 
can rival the Pyramids, or outdo the engineers 
whose lofty bridge over the Gard still stands with 



122 HISTORY 

its tiers of arches, after nineteen hundred years, 
absolutely plumb, and along which 

" Men might march on nor be pressed 
Twelve abreast," 

How much of our pavement will remain after two 
thousand years ? There are miles of Roman pave- 
ment still to be found scattered over Europe from 
Italy to Scotland. How much better is our system 
of water supply than that which the great aqueducts 
striding across the plains brought to Rome and to 
her provincial towns ? Have we improved mate- 
rially upon the Cloaca Maxima or the almost perfect 
arched drain in the deepest excavation of Nippur? 
Have we carried architecture or painting or sculpture 
further than it was carried in Egypt or in Greece ? 
We may go over the whole field and the results will 
be everywhere the same, and all alike will point 
to the same conclusion : that from the earliest civ- 
ilizations historically known to us down to the close 
of the eighteenth century there had been no change 
in environment and conditions sufficient to warrant 
the assertion of a continuous evolution, such as we 
must have if we are to find in it a general law and 
complete explanation. The stream of civilization 
rises and falls, plunges out of sight in one place 
and reappears in another, but it never cuts new 
channels or reaches a higher plane or flows with a 



HISTORY 123 

broader current than it apparently possessed at the 
dawn of recorded history. Evolution of the race 
in the sense in which it is used here, must go stead- 
ily forward without a break, compelled thereto by 
successive radical changes in race environment. No 
niatter how minute or how slow the advance, it 
cannot stand still ; and variety alone or mere shift- 
ing of place is not advance, although it may be 
movement. Thus it seems, speaking broadly, that 
during the historic period and down to the closing 
years of the eighteenth century, there has been no 
true race evolution in the proper sense of the word 
or in the manner in which we may reasonably infer 
it to have existed and proceeded down to the time 
of historical records. It would seem, if this be true, 
that there are marked limitations upon the doctrine 
of evolution in history, or at least, long pauses in 
its movement as there are in science, and the dif- 
ficulty is one which history itself must meet. 

But there is a still further difficulty if we consider 
the period just preceding the present day, for there 
we find strong evidence of a resumption of the real 
evolutionary movement of the race, if we may assume 
that such a movement went on in prehistoric times ; 
and history is in this way confronted with the de- 
mand that it should enunciate some law which shall 
cover not only the periods of evolution, but also the 
space filled with intense activity in which no evo- 



124 HISTORY 

lution took place. This demand becomes apparent 
if we examine closely the very latest period in the 
life of humanity, the one through which we have 
been and are at this moment passing. To make 
clear what this latest period means it is necessary 
briefly to summarize and restate the proposition 
which has just been laid down. We find man at 
the opening of the nineteenth century with a vastly 
extended knowledge, with greatly advanced methods 
of killing other animals, including himself, and with 
highly improved machinery for transmitting and dif- 
fusing his knowledge through the medium of printed 
speech. Otherwise he does not differ in any radical 
manner from his predecessor on the upper Nile, in 
the temples of Nippur, the streets of Bactra, or within 
the walls of Tiryns or Mycenae. To men in this 
condition came suddenly two new forces, in the prac- 
tical application of steam as power, and of electricity, 
first as a means of transmitting thought and knowl- 
edge, and then as a form of power also. These new 
forces have changed the face of the world and radi- 
cally altered human conditions, creating a wholly 
new environment, by the quickening of transporta- 
tion and communication, and by bringing the whole 
earth so easily within the grasp of the dominant 
races that it is nearly all reduced to possession in 
name and will soon be so in reality. There is 
no need to point out or dwell upon the marvels 



HISTORY 125 

which have thus been wrought out, or the social 
and political revolutions which have been effected. 
Gunpowder and printing worked social and politi- 
cal revolutions in their time also. The important 
point for us now is that under the mastery of 
these new forces, which have produced a new en- 
vironment, another period of regular and scientific 
evolution has apparently set in; and the new move- 
ment, which is chiefly economic and social, has gone 
on not only with regularity, but with an accelerated 
momentum which is little short of appalling. Here, 
under these new forces, we are not carrying the 
well-understood civilization of the past five thousand 
or six thousand years once more to a pitch of splen- 
dor, but we are producing a civilization and a social 
system wholly different from what has gone before. 
To speak more exactly, we are pushing forward 
the civilization we have inherited from the count- 
less centuries beyond all the former limits and on 
to heights or depths never before touched. The 
phenomena of this resultant of the new forces are 
largely economic on the surface, but they are at 
bottom not only economic, but social. We are creat- 
ures of habit, and we still express the new forces 
in terms of the only power the race knew for many 
thousands of years ; but what we have actually done 
is to change the world from the horse to the engine, 
from the man to the machine. We are rapidly in- 



126 HISTORY 

creasing this force, estimated in horse power, until 
it has already gone well-nigh beyond imagination. 
And still we are increasing it, still concentrating the 
whole movement of the world and the daily life 
of humanity on the production of machine power, 
heedless alike of the velocity at which we are trav- 
elling, or of the fact that a single break at any point 
might mean ruin and desolation such as the world 
has never known. Armed with this power we are 
tearing out the resources of the earth with entire 
disregard of the future, and heaping up wealth in a 
profusion and in masses such as the world never be- 
fore imagined even in its dreams. 

But the one fact more important than any other 
is that a process of steady evolution, owing to a 
change in the conditions surrounding humanity, 
seems to be again in progress. Can history ex- 
plain this present time in which, borne on by new 
and untried forces, we are passing beyond any 
civilization hitherto known, or predict the future 
which this present portends? Can history, with 
the assistance of archaeology, anthropology, geol- 
ogy and the rest, do this, and by researches in 
the prehistoric times, when there must have been 
evolution, owing to radical discoveries and changes, 
and by the local and limited evolution in specific 
cases in modern times, tell us the manner in which 
this new evolutionary power is going to work ? Are 



HISTORY 127 

we to infer that, because the movement of our own 
time appears to rest upon the conservation, con- 
centration, and control of energy, and upon the 
development of natural forces to that end, there- 
fore the movement of prehistoric times must have 
had the same evolutionary process at work, and 
that here we are to find at last the clew to the 
development of the race ? Can history bring all 
the periods within the operation of one har- 
monious law and the scope of a single explana- 
tion ? The purely mechanical theory of the universe 
seems to have broken down under science. It has 
also failed apparently to explain finally and com- 
pletely the history of man. Must history, like 
science, return upon her steps and seek for some 
new governing law which shall succeed where dogma 
was defeated, and where evolution fell short of the 
final goal ? A new period, bringing with it forces and 
conditions hitherto unknown, confronts modern his- 
tory. Unless she can solve the problem it presents, 
unless she can bring forth a theory of the universe 
and of life which shall take up the past and from 
it read the riddle of the present and draw aside the 
veil of the future, then history in its highest sense 
has failed. To the men of the twentieth century 
comes the opportunity to make the effort which shall 
convert failure to success, if success be possible. 



SAMUEL ADAMS ^ 

The British colonies on the Atlantic coast of North 
America were very remote from the great centres of 
civilization and but little known in the eighteenth 
century. Frenchmen and Englishmen fought grimly 
in the American forests, and the war offices of their 
respective countries knew of it, and fitted out expedi- 
tions and sent assistance to their fellow-countrymen 
in the distant West. When treaties were made, 
diplomatists wrangled over mountains and marked 
lines upon alleged maps of regions they had never 
seen. In time of peace sundry official persons were 
conscious that reports of provincial governors or other 
crown officers were gathering dust on the shelves of 
the colonial office or of the Board of Trade, and a 
group of merchants in London were well and profit- 
ably aware that there was a sturdy and increasing 
people beyond the Atlantic who bought their goods. 
But this was all. It is safe to say that there is 
hardly a corner of the world to-day so little known 

^ Through the kindness of the W. A. Wilde Co. of Boston, I am 
permitted to reprint here this essay upon Samuel Adams which origi- 
nally appeared in " The Stepping Stones of American History " published 
by them. 



SAMUEL ADAMS 129 

to the civilized world as the great American colonies 
of England were to Englishmen in the days of the 
First and Second Georges, and the American people 
were even less known than their country. Out of 
that vigorous population, prosperous, intelligent, full 
of life and energy, only two names at that period 
reached the ears of England and of Europe with any 
sense of reality or any actual meaning. Wherever 
the doctrines of Calvin were cherished, the name of 
Jonathan Edwards was revered. Wherever the spirit 
of invention or of scientific research was stirring, — 
and it was a very vivid spirit just then, already open- 
ing the way for the great century which lay beyond, 
— the name of Franklin was known and admired as 
that of one of the memorable men of the time. 
Those who dealt with public affairs knew also that 
this pioneer in meteorology, this discoverer in the 
untrodden field of electricity, this ingenious inventor 
of practical things, was also a man of the world, an 
economist, a diplomatist, and a master of knowledge 
in regard to America and her colonies, whom English 
statesmen consulted with confidence and were glad to 
number among their friends. But there the list 
of known Americans stopped, and all beyond was 
darkness. 

As the century grew to its last quarter, however, 
certain American colonies and towns began to emerge 
from the haze which covered the distant continent. 



130 SAMUEL ADAMS 

and to assume large and quite definite outlines as 
they acquired a somewhat painful familiarity in the 
minds of men. It now appeared that this distant 
and forgotten people were very real, after all. It 
became dimly visible that they were not all Indians 
or negroes or half-breeds or the descendants of con- 
victs and redemptioners, but for the most part, well 
educated, hard-headed men, extremely well versed in 
English history, of sound English, Scotch-Irish, and 
Huguenot stocks, acute lawyers and politicians, with 
very fixed ideas as to their own natural and constitu- 
tional rights. The first province to come out clearly 
before the vision of England and of western Europe 
was the old Puritan colony of Massachusetts, and the 
first town to impress itself upon their minds was 
Boston, which seemed to lead and guide the province. 
Whatever questions the generous emulation of later 
days may have raised as to the respective share of the 
original States in the Revolution, there was no con- 
temporary doubt as to which colony began and pushed 
steadily forward the revolutionary moment. The 
statesmen and writers, the army of pamphleteers, the 
editors of newspapers, and the historians of England 
and France, all alike proclaimed Massachusetts as the 
head and front of the offending, and Boston as the 
head and front of Massachusetts. "This province 
began it, — I might say this town," wrote General 
Gage, in bitterness of soul j and when George Rogers 



SAMUEL ADAMS 131 

Clarke was conquering the West for the United States 
he found the British calling upon the French and the 
Indians to come out and " fight Boston." So long 
does an old tradition live that to this day the Indians 
in the northwest of the continent still describe the 
people of the United States as " Boston men," and 
the Canadians as " King George men." Thus the 
popular imagination, ever seeking for the simple and 
concrete, depicted the two antagonists in the great 
conflict then breaking upon the world as the town of 
Boston and King George of England. 

So it came about that the events which for a few 
years made the little provincial capital the best known 
town in his Majesty's wide dominions added two 
names to the meagre list of Americans whose fame 
had crossed the Atlantic and whose deeds had given 
them meaning and reality. Many men took their 
lives in their hands when they signed the Declaration 
of Independence, but Samuel Adams and John Han- 
cock could not by any act or by any signature have 
made their own condition worse. They had been 
proscribed for years ; they had been excepted by 
name from Gage's amnesty ; and one of the objects 
of the somewhat famous march to Concord had been 
to seize their persons. For their special behoof a 
statute of Henry VIII had been drawn from its 
tomb ; on their necks had rested the gleam of the 
axe, and across their pathway had fallen the shadow 



132 SAMUEL ADAMS 

of the gallows. Whatever else others might say, 
they at least could not complain that they were 
ignored or neglected by England and her rulers. 

John Hancock found himself in this distinguished 
position, which had led him to the presidency of the 
Congress and to the first signature on the Declaration 
of Independence, because it had suited his companion 
in proscription to make him his associate, and to use 
him for certain important purposes. But Samuel 
Adams was proscribed and famous solely by his own 
acts and deeds. No one but himself had raised him 
to eminence. English ministers had sought for evi- 
dence to warrant his arrest for treason, they had 
tried to cajole him, they had laid wealth and pensions 
and places at his feet, they had failed to buy or intim- 
idate, and finally they had proscribed him. They 
had named him "the arch rebel," "the chief incen- 
diary," " the instar omnium,'' and they were troubled 
by no doubts when they did so. Men constantly err 
in their friends, but with the curious animal instinct 
which they have brought with them across uncounted 
centuries they are, as a rule, fairly correct in recog- 
nizing their most dangerous enemies. England re- 
garded Samuel Adams as the beginner, leader, and 
organizer of the revolutionary movement which cul- 
minated in war and independence, and the Americans 
of that day agreed with her. It is a high position to 
assign to any man, for the American Revolution, 



SAMUEL ADAMS 133 

momentous at the time, grows ever more mo- 
mentous and more worthy of serious thought as 
the United States, which came from it, waxes 
more powerful, and, standing in the forefront of 
nations, looms larger and larger upon the vision of 
mankind. 

Yet Samuel Adams really made for himself and 
actually filled the place which his own contempo- 
raries and the voice of history, authorities quite prone 
to differ, alike give him. His career is curiously 
simple, for his whole life was one of public service. 
Pleasure, professional success, money, business, private 
tastes, society, all these and many other things which 
usually shoot their parti-colored threads across the 
web of even those lives most singly devoted to state- 
craft or war, to art or letters or science, find no place 
and shine out nowhere in the career of Samuel 
Adams. He came from the Braintree stock, founded 
at the beginning of the Puritan emigration by the 
sturdy farmer Henry Adams, who had two grand- 
sons, Joseph and John. Joseph stayed by the ances- 
tral farm in Braintree, and became the grandfather 
of John Adams the first President, and the ancestor 
of his line of distinguished descendants. John, the 
brother of Joseph, left Braintree, took to the sea, 
settled in Boston, became the father of Samuel 
Adams the elder, who in due time married and had 
in his turn a son, Samuel Adams the younger, the 



134 SAMUEL ADAMS 

second cousin of John, " the man of the Revolution," 
as Jefferson called him. 

We may well pause here for a moment to consider 
Samuel Adams the elder, because he was a man of dis- 
tinction, and his success and his misfortunes, as well 
as his mind and character, had much influence upon 
his famous son. He had inherited a considerable 
property and increased it. He had a goodly house 
and garden, for the fashion of the day required a gar- 
den as an appendage of houses of the better sort. He 
was a leader in church and town affairs, went to the 
*' Great and General Court" and became a leader 
there, heading the opposition to the royal governor. 
He was a politician and a manager in the more pop- 
ular sense, organizing the men of the shipyards into 
what was known as the " Caulkers' Club," which is 
believed to have given a word to the language as 
well as a system to politics. He had also unluckily 
a speculative turn. As years passed he was less suc- 
cessful in business, became involved in the "Land 
Bank," a scheme for increasing the currency, utterly 
unsound in principle, and going to wreck accordingly ; 
so that when he came to die he transmitted a sadly 
impaired property to his children. 

Thus we can understand the atmosphere in which 
the younger Samuel grew up. The strong impres- 
sions of boyhood, youth, and early manhood were of 
public service, active political organization, extending 



SAMUEL ADAMS 135 

to the most popular forms, and of steady and ingenious 
opposition to the successive governors, who repre- 
sented the royal authority. Add to this that he saw 
his father's property shattered by the Laud Bank, and 
instead of blaming the inherent unsoundness of the 
scheme, his hostility, as is often the case, turned 
against the government, and with personal bitterness 
against Thomas Hutchinson, the chief opponent of 
the Bank, who afterwards rescued the province from 
the miseries of a depreciated and irredeemable paper 
currency. 

That all these impressions drawn from his father's 
actions and career should have sunk deep into his 
mind was quite natural, and they were enhanced by 
the fact that that father was a " wise and good man," 
a victim of unmerited reverses, and to his son all that 
was most kind and affectionate. Born in 1722, a 
child in a happy united household, Samuel Adams's 
father gave him every opportunity and advantage 
which the town and province afforded, or which gen- 
erosity could suggest. He went to the best public 
school. Thence he was sent to Harvard College and 
received a sound classical training, and there at Cam- 
bridge, in 1743, whither he had returned to take his 
master's degree, he delivered a thesis before the as- 
sembled dignitaries of the province, entitled " Whether 
it be lawful to resist the Supreme Magistrate, if the 
Commonwealth cannot otherwise be preserved." It 



136 SAMUEL ADAMS 

would be hard to find another case in which a college 
boy took as his theme a subject which was to be the 
text of his life-work, for the defence of his affirma- 
tive answer made that day at Cambridge as an 
academic exercise was to be carried on unrelentingly 
and without break until the resistance he advocated 
culminated at Philadelphia in the Declaration of 
Independence. 

Thus equipped in education and opinion he went 
forth in the world. His father placed him in the 
counting-house of Thomas Gushing and then gave him 
a thousand pounds to start in business for himself. 
He had every advantage. He belonged to the aris- 
tocracy of his little town, he still had wealth in 
prospect, he had a father distinguished in public life 
and respected by all, and a fair business opportunity 
was laid open before him. Unluckily he cared for 
none of these things. Half of the thousand pounds 
was lent to a friend and never came back. The other 
half he lost himself. Then he went into the opera- 
tion of a brewery with his father. This ran on until 
his father's death in 1748. Then the brewery faded 
and failed, and Samuel Adams found himself with the 
paternal house and garden on Purchase street, a wife 
and family, no money, and no business. So he re- 
mained through life, entirely poor, absolutely regard- 
less of money as well as indifferent to it, and living 
always straitly, but decently, honorably, and free from 



SAMUEL ADAMS 137 

debt, on the petty stipend of his public employments. 
But although he had lost the worldly things for which 
he did not care, he had what he valued most, — his 
freedom, the untrammelled way to gratify the ruling 
passion of his nature open before him, and a steady 
growth of the power which he coveted. For in those 
years of financial decline he became gradually known 
as a strong and able writer upon public questions. 
Men began to turn to him for advice, and he began to 
shape opinions. He took one office after another in 
the town, the scale gradually increasing. He found 
himself at the head of followers ever growing in num- 
ber, and slowly but surely the mastery of the formi- 
dable instrument of the Boston town-meeting came 
into his hands. So passed away sixteen toilsome, hard- 
working years, and then he stepped forth into the 
light as a leader, never afterwards to lose his place. 
His father died, as has been said, in 1748. In the 
succeeding years, while Samuel Adams was struggling 
with poverty, and with the evil legacy of Land Bank 
claims, and slowly winning his place in the politics 
and business of the town, great world events had 
been following each other in rapid succession. War 
had come, convulsing Europe and America. Fred- 
erick of Prussia had fought and beaten off banded 
Europe, and Pitt had raised England to the zenith of 
glory, one victory chasing close after another. In all 
this glory and in many of these victories, the Ameri- 



138 SAMUEL ADAMS 

can colonies had largely shared, and none had given 
more in men and money than Massachusetts. The 
colonists were filled with pride in the empire and 
with admiration for the " great commoner." In 1759 
Quebec fell, and close behind this crowning victory, 
which gave North America to the English-speaking 
people, came the first ministerial attempt, born of 
ignorance and restlessness, to put colonial affairs in 
order. England thought it wise to undertake to en- 
force the Navigation Acts in despite of which Amer- 
ican merchants had been wont to sail ships and carry 
on a lucrative and illegal trade. Writs were given 
out authorizing the customs officers to search houses 
for smuggled goods ; and James Otis thundered 
against these writs of assistance, on the theme that 
an Englishman's house is his castle, in a speech 
which still echoes in history, and with which John 
Adams declared that the child Independence was 
born. It was a great speech. It was the first cry 
of warning to England, where it fell on deaf ears. 
It was the first note of resistance, but there was 
nothing of independence in it, and no one was farther 
from that conception than James Otis. That far- 
reaching thought was to come from a stronger and 
more determined man than the brilliant orator, from 
one who was even then fast working himself out 
from obscurity in the politics of Boston, although he 
had no gift of eloquence to aid him. 



SAMUEL ADAMS 139 

Meantime events moved. George III came to 
the throne. Peace was to be made. Pitt fell from 
power, all largeness of view went with him, and 
George Grenville, worthy, well-informed busybody, 
decided that it would be a good thing to raise a 
revenue from America. So the Stamp Act was 
passed, and the American colonies burst into a 
flame of bitter opposition. A Congress was called, 
and mischief was afoot. The moment also had 
come at last for Samuel Adams; and in 1764 he 
drafted certain instructions, very famous in their 
day, from the town of Boston to her representa- 
tives in the Legislature, setting forth the necessity 
and duty of resistance to taxation, and also con- 
taining what was far more fatal to England, — an 
appeal for a union of all the colonies in what was 
necessarily a common cause. It is well to note 
this appeal for union, because it appears in this, 
the first of Samuel Adams's great state papers, 
and is repeated unceasingly by him from that day 
forward. Its importance lies in the fact that the 
political union of the colonies meant and could 
mean nothing but a mortal blow to English author- 
ity. Everything else was trivial compared to that 
purpose of union, and Adams clung to it with a 
grim tenacity which nothing could move. In the 
following year, 1765, he is reported to have ad- 
mitted to his friends in private that he wished for 



140 SAMUEL ADAMS 

independence. Whether that date is exact or not. 
it is clear that he aimed at such a consumma- 
tion long before any one else dreamed of it, and 
three years later he openly declared it. To that 
end he labored, to that ultimate object all his argu- 
ments tended. He stood alone in 1765. He still 
stood nearly alone ten years later, and was feared 
on account of what were thought to be his desperate 
opinions. But through all he never swerved, and 
he passed along his stormy course with the strength 
of the man who knows exactly what he wants and 
precisely how he means to get it. To follow here in 
anything except one line that remarkable career, 
every detail of which had a meaning and an influ- 
ence upon the current of events, is impossible. All 
that can be done is to enumerate the most important 
incidents and point out the great landmarks of the 
march of resistance to England, which culminated at 
last in war and independence. 

In 1765 Samuel Adams was chosen to the Legis- 
lature. There he remained until a Continental Con- 
gress sprang into existence, and he became at once 
not only a leader, but the master spirit. He already 
led and controlled the town-meeting of Boston. 
Now he led all the towns of the province ; and 
when the Legislature slackened or seemed to lose 
heart, he used the Boston town-meeting to spur it 
on. He signalized his entry into the Legislature by 



SAMUEL ADAMS 141 

carrying a series of resolutions which made much 
stir, and in which he set forth the principles of 
resistance to taxation without representation, and 
boldly questioned the power of Parliament. When 
the repeal of the Stamp Act had caused a fervent 
outburst of loyalty, it was Samuel Adams who kept 
the spirit of opposition alive by his incessant writing 
in the newspapers, pointing out that, though the ob- 
noxious act had gone, the declaration of the right 
of Parliament to tax the colonies remained. He 
never lost heart or quieted down when public feel- 
ing ebbed, and it is but fair to say that England 
always came to his aid. At this moment it was the 
act to tax red and white lead, glass, paper, painters' 
colors, and tea. Adams met this fresh attempt with 
his scheme of non-importation agreements, and in 
1768 with a far more dangerous weapon, — a circu- 
lar letter from the Massachusetts House to the other 
colonies, asking them to unite in resistance to this 
new taxation. 

Side by side with these large schemes, covering 
the policy of the continent, went on an unceasing 
controversy with the royal governors; first with 
Bernard, then with Hutchinson, — the former an 
irascible, rather dull Englishman, the latter a very 
able and keen New Englander, to whom opposition 
was sharpened by the life-long personal enmity of 
the man who had suffered by the downfall of the 



142 SAMUEL ADAMS 

Land Bank. This contest with the governors was 
never allowed to flag. Everything they desired was 
withheld, every proposition they advanced was com- 
bated. Letters emanating from Samuel Adams went 
out constantly to the colonial agents in London, and 
to public men in England, setting forth the case of 
the colonies, assailing the governors and demanding 
their recall. This contest maintained the popular 
interest and ministered to the popular excitement, 
and there was always something on hand to serve 
the purpose of the man who waged it. 

In 1766 it was the Billeting Act; in 1768 came 
the circular letter from the House to the other colo- 
nies, and the governor, acting under instructions, 
demanded it should be rescinded, — which the House 
debated at length, and then would not comply. Next 
arrived the British regiments, and a fierce discussion 
opened in regard to their presence in the town. This 
controversy had a bloody ending. The people bitterly 
resented the presence of the soldiers, and the leaders, 
headed by Adams, stimulated the popular hostility. 
Affrays were frequent ; and at last, on the evening 
of March 5, 1770, the inevitable happened. Some 
men and boys baited the soldiers, and the soldiers 
fired on the crowd. The young moon shining clear 
that night looked down upon the light snow in King 
Street, stained red now with the first blood of the 
Revolution. The ominous cry of " Town-born, turn 



I 



SAMUEL ADAMS 143 

out ! " rang through the streets. The troops were 
brave and disciplined. They would have died hard, 
but numbers would have overwhelmed them. Hutch- 
inson managed to restore quiet for the night. The 
next day there was a town-meeting, presently grown 
so large that it adjourned to the Old South Church. 
Guided by Samuel Adams, they demanded the with- 
drawal of the troops from the town. Hutchinson 
refused ; he had no authority. Then he would send 
away one regiment, but not both. All this was voted 
unsatisfactory by the meeting, now swelled by the 
country people who were pouring into Boston and 
crowding the streets. So the day wore away, and 
darkness fell. For the last time the committee went 
to the Council Chamber, with the cry of the town- 
meeting — Adams's own watchword, ''Both regiments 
or none ! " — sounding behind them. Then Adams, 
plain of dress, simple in manner, stern and decisive 
in words, spoke in the Council Chamber to the repre- 
sentatives of royal authority. It was the most dra- 
matic, the greatest moment, perhaps, of his life. He 
was only the man of the "town-meeting;" and facing 
him were the royal governor, the judges in their 
robes, the council, and the colonels in their scarlet 
uniforms. But he was able to unchain the demo- 
cratic force destined soon to enter on a career which 
would shape the fate of two continents, and those 
whom he addressed dimly felt the presence of some- 



144 SAMUEL ADAMS 

thing new and strange. They hesitated and resisted. 
First the council gave way, then the colonels, and 
at last Hutchinson. The regiments were withdrawn, 
and passed out of Boston with the name of " Sam 
Adams " attached to them. 

So the fire blazed up for a moment and then sank 
down ; and thereupon ensued one of those lulls, one 
of those moments of weariness and dejection which 
occur in all popular movements, and which Adams 
dreaded more than anything else. He met it in 
the newspapers with his articles. He fought it in 
the House with continued attacks on the removal 
of the Legislature to Cambridge. But the non- 
importation agreements were slackening. Men were 
growing weary. The House began to yield, and 
Hutchinson was a clever manager. He let them 
go back to Boston, and then Adams, alive to the 
danger, opened his new plan. He turned to the 
town-meeting, and started the scheme of committees 
of correspondence in all the towns. The Tories 
laughed, and made light of it ; but the towns re- 
sponded. Boston adopted Adams's declaration of 
rights, and the other towns answered to the call. 
The plan was a success after all, and a new and more 
dangerous weapon was now in the hands of the agi- 
tator. Not the town of Boston alone, but henceforth 
all the towns of the province responded to his touch. 
Revolution was organized. Nothing remained but to 



SAMUEL ADAMS 145 

extend it to the other provinces, and union, active 
and effective, was accomplished. 

Again, too, the ministry and the king came to his 
aid. All the obnoxious duties had been repealed ex- 
cept that on tea, and the East India Company, whose 
tea was piling up in their warehouses, thanks to the 
non-importation agreement, were now relieved of the 
export duties, and thus urged to send tea to the colo- 
nies. Meantime, the contest in the colony had been 
steadily advancing. The payment of the salaries by 
governor and judges had been decreed in England, 
and the House, under the lead of Adams, denounced 
it as a perilous assault upon the liberties of the peo- 
ple, as, indeed, it was. Then Hutchinson, in a very 
able message, asserted the power of Parliament to 
legislate in all ways for the colonies; and all the 
Tories, and, in fact, not a few of the patriots, felt that 
the argument was unanswerable. But it was really 
just what Adams wanted. Above all things, Adams 
desired to discuss the power and authority of Par- 
liament, and now the governor had given him the 
chance to do it in a manner to attract the utmost 
possible attention. The reply of the House, drafted 
by Adams and carefully considered by the members, 
proved to be abler, keener, and more conclusive than 
the learned and ingenious argument of the governor. 
In the debate thus opened the House scored, and 
public opinion was strongly turned against the crown. 

10 



146 SAMUEL ADAMS 

Adams's motto always was, throughout the struggle, 
" Put your enemy m the wrong" ; and in the case of 
such an enemy as he was contending with, this was 
not difficult. But it must have seemed to him, in 
1773, as if his enemy was fairly delivered into his 
hands. Not only had Hutchinson given him oppor- 
tunity to discuss the power of Parliament, but Vir- 
ginia, in March, passed resolutions for Intercolonial 
Committees of Correspondence. Massachusetts had 
accepted the offer with enthusiasm, and Adams's plan 
for organization and union was effected. The most 
mortal blow to English rule had been struck, although 
few knew it at the moment ; and while America was 
thus engaged, England was passing the Tea Act. 
When the news reached America, Adams replied by 
starting the movement for a Congress of all the 
colonies. 

Events ever growing in importance were now 
treading close upon each other's heels. Presently 
came news that the tea ships had sailed ; then that 
they were in the harbor, Boston, acting ever through 
the town-meeting, under the lead of Adams, would 
not suffer the tea to be landed. Every expedient 
was tried to avoid anything like violence, and to get 
the tea sent back to England. But the consignees fal- 
tered and resisted, and when they had been brought 
to terms, the officers of the customs and the governor 
opposed. So the days wore by until it was within a 



SAMUEL ADAMS 147 

few hours of the time when, under the law, the fate- 
ful cargoes had to be landed. The town-meeting was 
in session at the old South Church ; they were wait- 
ing, as the short December day drew to a close, the 
result of a last attempt to obtain a permit from the 
governor to let the ships go to sea. At last the mes- 
sage of final refusal came. It was another dramatic 
moment in the career of Samuel Adams. Again he 
was the central figure, and again he had everything 
arranged, and knew exactly what he meant to do. 
The refusal of the governor was reported, and Adams 
arose and cried out, " This meeting can do nothing 
more to save the country." As he uttered the words 
the Indian war-whoop was heard outside. There was 
a rush to the wharves, and in a few hours the harbor 
was black with tea. It was at last evident to all 
men that Massachusetts, and that America, would 
not pay taxes which they had not a part in imposing. 
England responded quickly to the defiance con- 
veyed by the destruction of the tea. A military 
governor in the person of Thomas Gage replaced 
Hutchinson, and brought more troops with him. 
The Port Bill closed Boston Harbor, reduced her 
people to idleness, thus making her a martyr and her 
cause the cause of all the colonies, a better bond of 
union than any Adams himself had devised. The 
Provincial charter was changed and the popular 
rights curtailed, — another link in the union chain. 



148 SAMUEL ADAMS 

Gage also had orders to arrest Adams and Hancock, 
but even with his army about him he feared to do it ; 
for the menace of a new danger and a new force 
was in the air, and although the governor did not 
comprehend it he recoiled from it. Then Gage sum- 
moned the Legislature to meet at Salem, and when 
they were assembled, Adams amused the governor 
and his friends in the House by talk of conciliation, 
while he quickly gathered an unyielding majority to 
effect the masterstroke. When the majority was en- 
rolled, when all was ready, suddenly and surely 
Adams moved. The doors were locked, and even 
while the governor's messenger with the message of 
prorogation demanded admittance and beat upon the 
panels, the House chose delegates to the American 
Congress. Then the doors were broken open, and the 
last " Great and General Court " to be held under the 
crown was dissolved, and passed out into history. Its 
work was done. 

In September Samuel Adams and his cousin John 
met with the other delegates in Philadelphia. In the 
remarkable body of men who then gathered in Car- 
penter's hall, none except Franklin was so well known, 
none excited so much interest, as Samuel Adams, and 
none also was so much feared or regarded with so 
much suspicion. His ability, patriotism and courage 
were recognized and admired, but he was thought to 
be a desperate man aiming at independence. His 



SAMUEL ADAMS 149 

purpose certainly was independence, and a very clear, 
definite purpose it was, although he stood alone, and 
every one of his associates shrank from the very 
word. But he was anything but desperate. Never, 
indeed, did he appear greater and stronger than at 
this trying moment when all around him were sus- 
picion and hostility. Those who reckoned on a violent 
incendiary did not understand that they were face to 
face with one of the most adroit managers of men 
known to history. Never so much as at this critical 
instant, with all his hopes trembling on the verge of 
fulfilment, were the tact, the self-control, the perfect 
calmness of the man so conspicuous. Great as a 
combatant, he was equally great as a conciliator. It 
was he, the rigid Puritan, the hater of bishops, who 
moved that a clergyman of the Church of England 
should be asked to offer prayer. The pre-eminent 
man in the revolutionary movement, he now sedu- 
lously kept himself in the background. He served 
on such committees as he was appointed to diligently, 
as was his wont, and took his share in the great state 
papers which emanated from the Congress; but it 
was all done so unobtrusively that the most delicate 
sensibilities could not be ruffled nor the most wakeful 
suspicion aroused. No doubt in private conversation 
he gently impressed his views upon others. It is 
certain that his plans carried out by others at home 
brought pressure upon the Congress in the shape of 



150 SAMUEL ADAMS 

" Suffolk resolves," county congresses, and then a 
Provincial Congress, all pointing out to the other colo- 
nies the way to independent government. But in 
Philadelphia Samuel Adams sank into the back- 
ground, leaving leadership to others and trusting to 
events and to outside influences which he himself, in 
part, at least, set in motion, to carry them along 
what seemed to him both the inevitable and the 
righteous path. 
[/ From Philadelphia Adams returned to Massachu- 
setts to join in the work of organizing the Provincial 
Congress, carrying on the work of the Committees 
of Correspondence, keeping the Boston town-meeting, 
which Gage had prohibited, alive by adjournments, so 
that a new one need never be called, and in all ways 
preparing for the war which he knew to be near. 
Events indeed moved now with great rapidity. Win- 
ter wore away, and when the spring came. Gage 
determined at last to arrest the two men whom he 
had proscribed. Warned in ample time Hancock and 
Adams left Boston for Lexington, and thither Gage 
sent troops to seize them on the way to destroy the 
munitions of war at Concord, There in the fading 
darkness came Revere bearing news of the coming of 
the troops. Presently they saw the British infantry 
march up in ordered ranks ; they heard Pitcairn's 
order; they heard the shots ring out; and then they 
slipped away from the house and drove rapidly off to 



SAMUEL ADAMS 151 

Woburn. As they passed along the quiet country 
road, the beautiful light of the April dawn flushing 
the skies above their heads, the Puritan reserve for 
one moment gave way to an overwhelming emotion, 
and Adams looking upward, like Cromwell at Dunbar, 
cried out, " What a glorious morning is this ! " 

And so they passed on together to Philadelphia, re- 
ceived with acclaim along the road, for the news of 
Lexington and Concord had gone before them. The 
Revolution had begun, but there were still some 
months of conflict before the new Congress. There 
was also abundance of bitter opposition to Adams, 
but now events, as he had foreseen, were working 
irresistibly on his side. Paine' s famous pamphlet 
" Common Sense " had wrought a great change in 
opinion and had crystallized the popular will. Con- 
gress was compelled to authorize the States to set up 
governments of their own. They were obliged to 
adopt the army before Boston and put Washington at 
the head of it. Virginia was now working side by 
side with Massachusetts, and the two great colonies 
were drawing the others with them. John Hancock, 
the proscribed, was made president of the Congress. 
No longer was it necessary for Samuel Adams to hold 
his hand or keep in the background. Now, with all 
his power of will, he was able to drive forward to the 
goal at which his whole life had aimed. In June, 
Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, the close friend of 



152 SAMUEL ADAMS 

Adams, introduced his famous resolution declaring 
for independence. There was a committee appointed, 
there was the pause and the deliberation for nearly a 
month so characteristic of the race, and then Jeffer- 
son reported the Declaration, and it was adopted, 
signed, and given to the world. 

This was the great moment of Samuel Adams's 
life. For years he alone had foreseen this outcome 
and labored for it. For this he had faced proscrip- 
tion, suspicion, and bitter hostility. To few men is 
it given to win so great a victory, to behold so com- 
plete a triumph of all they hold most dear. When 
Samuel Adams set his name to the Declaration his 
great work on the stage of history was done. Not 
that his labors for his country and his beloved State 
ended then. On the contrary, for twenty-one years 
more he worked as hard, as unceasingly, as he had 
ever worked, and that meant all the time, and in a 
measure which few men had ever equalled. 

He remained in Congress nearly to the end of the 
war, stayed there long after it had declined in char- 
acter and importance, and after the great men with 
whom he had begun had been almost wholly re- 
placed by others sadly their inferiors in distinction 
and ability. He shirked no duty, he served on great 
committees, he labored in every way to sustain the 
war and the army. His zeal, intelligence, and 
energy slackened no jot in all those toilsome years 



SAMUEL ADAMS 153 

or in the darkest hours. Never for a moment did 
his faith and courage fail. In the intervals at home 
he labored just as hard at the work in Massachu- 
setts. He served as Secretary of State, the execu- 
tive officer of the Executive Council, and guided the 
Provincial Congress, spurring the State on to give 
that full share of men and money to the common 
cause which stands as one of the glories of the old 
Commonwealth. He had a leading part in preparing 
the Articles of Confederation and in framing the con- 
stitution of 1780 for Massachusetts, under which the 
State is still governed. When the state government 
was formed, he became a member of the state senate, 
then for a series of years its presiding officer, then 
lieutenant-governor, and finally, after the death of 
Hancock, he was for three years governor, the office 
with which beyond all others he would have pre- 
ferred to crown his career. In 1797 he retired from 
public life, and six years later, just after he had 
passed his eighty-first birthday, he died honored and 
mourned by the people of Massachusetts whom he 
had loved so well and served so long. 

His career after 1776 was one filled with unremit- 
ting labor crowned with high distinction, furnishing in 
itself a career sufficient to gratify an eager ambition. 
Yet is it nevertheless true that the work of Samuel 
Adams in the largest sense ended on the 4th of July, 
1776. All that came after was secondary and slight 



154 



SAMUEL ADAMS 



compared to what had gone before. His work after 
1776 might have been done by others. His work 
before 1776, whether any other man could have per- 
formed it or not, was, as a matter of fact, performed 
by him alone, and it not only exhibited high qualities 
of mind and character, but it brought lasting results 
which entitle him to be reckoned among the greatest 
public men of whom the history of the United States 
makes record. Without exaggeration, it may be said 
also that what he accomplished and the abilities 
which he displayed give him a sure place among the 
most important men of his age, whether at home or 
abroad. The ten years, moreover, preceding 1776 
showed nothing but success, won with an efficiency 
and freedom from error rarely to be met with. The 
twenty years after, on the other hand, made it appar- 
ent that he was not fitted for the great work which 
the new conditions demanded, as he had been for 
the equally important but widely different work 
which alone had made the new conditions and the 
new problems possible. 

Samuel Adams was, as he was often called, the 
" man of the Revolution." His work in life was to 
organize revolution and separate the colonies from 
England. But although a great organizer, he was 
not a man of constructive power. Outside of Massa- 
chusetts, where he understood the people, the com- 
munity, and the modes of government, he could pull 



SAMUEL ADAMS 155 

down, but he could not build up. Within the Com- 
monwealth, he could play a leading part in making 
the constitution of 1780 one of the best written con- 
stitutions ever framed, because that merely involved 
a transfer of the powers and methods of government 
exercised by crown and people under the provincial 
form to the people of the State. Outside Massachu- 
setts, where the problem was to make a nation out of 
thirteen jarring States, Adams failed, for there he 
was on new ground, filled with unreasoning suspi- 
cions of external authority which he had always re- 
sisted, and unable to see that there was an absolute 
distinction between the rule of the English crown 
and that of a government formed by the people of 
the thirteen States themselves. At Philadelphia, his 
jealousy of a standing army led him to oppose half 
pay to officers on retirement. At Philadelphia he 
took a conspicuous share in framing the Articles of 
Confederation, and was unable to see not merely that 
they would not work, but that they were so funda- 
mentally wrong in conception and principle that 
they were doomed to failure. He had no liking for 
the Constitution of 1787, and no sympathy with the 
movement which produced it. He was finally brought 
to its support by the pressure of his friends, and his 
support was most essential ; but he neither under- 
stood it nor believed in it. He was by nature emi- 
nently conservative in the great underlying principles 



156 SAMUEL ADAMS 

of law and order. No one was more stern than he 
in measures to repress and punish the Shays Rebel- 
lion, for, revolutionist as he was, he hated chaos and 
loved order of a pretty rigid kind. Yet he opposed 
Washington's administration in all its great policies 
and in a manner which demonstrated that he had 
utterly failed to comprehend that the national gov- 
ernment was the only means by which the States and 
people of America had been rescued from a hopeless 
and widespread anarchy, of which the Shays Rebel- 
lion, which he had helped to crush, was but a single 
manifestation. 

It is very seldom that we find in the same man 
the power to pull down combined with an equal 
ability to build up. The men who made the Consti- 
tution, although all supporters of the Revolution, 
were not the men who planned the struggle and 
brought on the war. Washington is a rare example 
of a man, who, having led in the destruction of one 
political system, is then able to exhibit an even 
greater capacity in constructing a new one upon the 
ruins of the old. Yet even Washington had no 
important part in preparing revolution. When he 
entered upon his great task at Cambridge, that of 
Samuel Adams was finished. So it is that when we 
turn back from the period of construction to the 
period when revolution was engendered and made 
inevitable, we find that there is no one who ap- 



SAMUEL ADAMS 157 

proaches Samuel Adams in effectiveness or capacity 
as a statesman and leader of men. 

He was a Puritan by descent and a Puritan him- 
self. Robust and vigorous, physically and mentally, 
his gray eyes and strongly cut features look out at 
us from Copley's picture with a prevailing sense of 
force, which time cannot dim nor fading colors lessen. 
He was deeply religious, and the Puritan hatred of 
Roman papacy and British episcopacy burned hot 
within him. He had no care for material things. 
He lived in respectable poverty all his days, and 
desired nothing more. The best education possible 
to the time and place was given him, and made him 
a good classical scholar and an especial lover of 
Latin. Everything that bore upon politics or his- 
tory, the philosophy or science of government, or the 
rights of men, he had read and pondered and knew 
with an exactness which made his learning as ready 
in use as it was thorough in possession. He was a 
man of pure life, beloved in his household, cheerful 
and agreeable in company, and with a power of at- 
taching young men to him, which shows that his 
nature was neither austere nor ungenial. But his 
most remarkable quality was an utter absence of 
egotism, so complete, indeed, that it kept him long 
from his true place in history, and has made it most 
difficult to know him. In all his published writings 
he was absolutely objective and impersonal, and in 



158 SAMUEL ADAMS 

his private letters he never talks of himself. Even 
when he is assailed by jealousies and attacked with 
injustice, he puts it all aside as indifferent and of no 
consequence. Not that he was a forgiving man ; he 
was disposed to be relentless, and Dr. Johnson would 
have found him a good hater, but his own personality 
never figured in his enmity. In most strong men, 
the personal equation is very large. It was so in 
the Adams family, and John Adams always looks at 
every event first as it touches himself, so that his 
writings, while they brim over with egotism, have 
also the intensely human note which ever appeals 
to human sympathies. Samuel Adams was a very 
strong man indeed, but this personal note is lacking, 
not only in his own writings, but in all that his con- 
temporaries wrote about him. They describe and 
criticise and praise him, but they never tell us that 
he ever said anything about himself. He had in 
truth to the full the old Puritan temperament, which 
in the days of Charles made the casters-down of 
church and throne lose sight of everything but their 
religion, and in the days of George III made Samuel 
Adams forget everything, including himself, in his 
mission, as he conceived it, of separating America 
from England. 

With a patience which nothing could weary, he 
carried on his opposition to the royal governors. He 
got possession of Boston, he got possession of the 



SAMUEL ADAMS 159 

province and the Legislature. He wove bonds of 
connection with the leading men in England and in 
all the colonies. He organized Boston, then the Leg- 
islature, then all the towns, and then came the conti- 
nent. He argued his case on every point, in state 
papers, in resolutions, in declarations, in countless 
articles in the newspapers, in innumerable letters to 
correspondents everywhere. No question was too 
large for his grasp, no detail too small to be over- 
looked. Hutchinson noted that as the controversy 
progressed, Adams changed even his formal phrases, 
and every change pointed toward popular rights and 
independence. His whole life was given to the 
work, and his industry and capacity for labor seem 
almost superhuman. His light burning far into the 
night was a familiar sight in the little town, and 
people used to say when they saw it, " There is Sam 
Adams writing against the Tories." He was no ora- 
tor, and his style in writing was plain and unorna- 
mented to the last degree, but he spoke with a force, 
clearness, and mastery, and wrote with a skill and 
strength, which carried conviction captive. 

Greatest he was, perhaps, as a manager of men 
where two or three were gathered together. He 
passed hours on the wharves, in the shipyards or the 
shops, and the shipwrights and sailors and mechanics 
of Boston followed him implicitly and moved at his 
word. Galloway, the Pennsylvania Tory, says that 



160 SAMUEL ADAMS 

Adams controlled the mob in Philadelphia, although 
he had never seen Philadelphia until Congress met 
there in 1774. How he did it, no man knew then or 
knows now, but the mere charge is a tribute to his 
singular power over the mass of the people, for he 
was no demagogue, and never had any of the arts 
of one. 

He watched also for all the young men of promise, 
yoked them to his cause, and made them not only his 
followers, but his devoted friends, as they appeared 
in turn upon the stage of action. He it was who 
captured Hancock, the rich, vain, generous, difficult, 
not over-intelligent aristocrat, for the popular side. 
The Warrens, Church, Quincy, John Adams himself, 
were all brought forward by him. Yet for himself 
he always took a second place. He was never 
speaker, only clerk, of the House which he ruled. 
He was rarely first on the great committees, although 
in the hour of trial the post of danger and of leader- 
ship was always his. So much power and so much 
self-effacement are seldom found together, but the 
combination displays that marvellous tact which was 
never at fault, and that ability to manage men which 
in politics and history is not easy to equal. 

Thus he gradually, step by step, led the resistance 
to England forward. No threats or perils could 
move that iron courage, no bribes of place or power 
or money could touch that stern integrity. It was a 



SAMUEL ADAMS 161 

continual advance. Even in moments of fatigue, 
when the popular feeling was lulled, he was still 
pressing forward, still writing, still arguing, still 
moving the minds of men. In this way he gradually 
created a public opinion which became irresistible, 
and which astounded his opponents when the moment 
came to call it forth. No crisis ever found him sur- 
prised. He was always prepared, and met every 
ordeal victoriously. 

He stands out in history not only as the organizer 
of revolution and the teacher who made revolution 
possible, but as the first man who understood and 
wielded the force of the people — the great demo- 
cratic force which then entered upon its career and 
which was destined to change the entire political 
form of Western civilization. This was a very large 
part to play in the world's history, and it puts 
Samuel Adams among the few leaders of men who 
in the days of Louis XV and George III made possi- 
ble the events of the nineteenth century and opened 
the way for the rise of the United States. 



11 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT.^ 

No human character can be justly depicted, with 
all its lights and shades duly touched and set forth, in 
a few pages or a dozen phrases. How much more 
impossible to make clear to others a human character 
which has been caught in the toils of great affairs, 
upon which responsibilities, growing ever more vast, 
have acted and reacted, and which has thus been 
modified, educated, and developed ! All this is pre- 
eminently true of President Roosevelt, No man has 
lived the life of his time so amply as he ; no one has 
known humanity in so many phases, no one has wider 
sympathies or so many interests. It would be worse 
than idle for any one, no matter how intimate his 
friendship, to fancy that he could depict a character 
so many-sided, so tried and tested in such multiform 
experiences within the brief space allowed me, and in 

1 I am indebted to the kindness of the publishers of McClures Mag- 
azine for permission to include this article in this volume. I reprint it 
with a full realization of the utter impossibility of giving any proper 
description of President Roosevelt within such narrow limits. I venture 
to republish it because it was an attempt, at a critical moment, to give 
an impression of the real man, and only an impression, but at the same 
time one sufficient to counteract some of the misunderstandings which 
were rife during the Presidential election of 1904, when the article 
appeared. 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 163 

the hurry and excitement inseparable from the closing 
days of a presidential election. 

But perhaps out of my personal knowledge I can 
give an impression ; and to that I can best attain by 
dispersing some of the myths and misconceptions 
engendered partly by accident and partly by malice, 
which, if not actually believed, have certainly con- 
fused the minds of some very honest and very 
patriotic people, and have even troubled many men 
who thoroughly believe in the President and fully 
intend to vote for him. 

There are few things in this world so dangerous as 
catchwords. President Roosevelt once used the word 
** strenuous" as a title for some essays. The popular 
fancy pounced upon the word, the popular humorist 
caught it up, and to-day there is an idea widely 
diffused through the mass of the American people 
that Theodore Roosevelt leads an existence of feverish 
and almost diseased activity, which, if not expended 
on things physical, is projected upon public affairs. 
Mr. Roosevelt is certainly a man of great physical and 
mental energy. If he had not been he could not 
have performed the extraordinary amount of work 
which he has accomplished in the last twenty-five 
years; yet the very accomplishment of that work 
shows that his activity is neither feverish nor abnor- 
mal nor diseased, but regulated and controlled ; for 
if it had not been regulated and controlled it would 



164 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

have effected nothing. His daily life does not differ 
in any respect from that of any other very busy man 
of great energy, who finds rest and relief not only in 
active out-of-door life, but in a wide and constant 
reading of books, — a habit, by the way, quite as char- 
acteristic of the man as any other, but of which the 
newspaper critics and humorists tell us little. 

In the same way the President is described and 
widely accepted as hot-headed, rash, and impulsive, 
prone to sudden resolutions, and acting upon them 
without sufficient consideration. The origin of this 
misconception is as slender as that of the strenuous 
life. Theodore Roosevelt is a man of strong convic- 
tions, who started as a boy with some high and fixed 
ideals of life and conduct, to which he has tenaciously 
clung. Like most young men similarly equipped, he 
was disposed at the outset to be very certain of his 
opinions and very vigorous in their expression. But 
unlike most other young men, he had the perilous 
opportunity, when barely out of college, to put his 
opinions into practice and to express them in perma- 
nent form both in speech and writing, — a trial which 
youth usually escapes. The care of statement which 
comes with age and experience was sometimes lacking 
to the young writer and assemblyman; as it would be 
to any young man. But the written word and the 
accomplished deed remain; and hence the delusion 
has sprung up, and been carefully fostered for politi- 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 165 

cal purposes, that all the strong utterances of youth, 
to which they are entirely becoming, are those of the 
present moment, and mean rashness and indiscretion 
in the mature statesman, to whom these particular 
forms of utterance might not be at all fitting. There 
is no necessary connection between the two ; between 
the generous and often unmeasured expression of 
youth and the instructed mind of the man who has 
known men and cities and tasted the delight of battle. 
We judge the mature public man by what he is, not 
by what he may have said twenty-five years before, 
honest and brave as that early opinion and that boy- 
ish speech surely were. 

Theodore Roosevelt apprehends very quickly. 
When he has thought a subject out thoroughly and 
knows what he means to do, he acts promptly. 
When, after full consideration, he has made up his 
mind as to what is right he is unbending; but no 
man has been in the White House for many years 
who is so ready to take advice, who has made up his 
mind more slowly, more deliberately, and after more 
consultation than Theodore Roosevelt, No President 
within my observation has ever consulted with the 
leaders of his party, not only in the House and 
Senate, but in the States and in the press, so fre- 
quently and to such good purpose as Mr. Roosevelt, 
although a favorite charge is that he is headstrong 
and wishes no advisers. 



166 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

Another misconception growing out of the same 
theory and much urged by his political opponents and 
by sundry neurotic newspapers, is that Mr. Roosevelt 
is extremely reckless, and would not hesitate for 
an instant to plunge the country into war/ This 
absurdity grows, I am inclined to think, very largely 
out of the President's passion for athletics and for 
more or less dangerous sports, and because he went 
so readily and quickly himself as a soldier into the 
war with Spain. But this theory is of course a mere 
confusion of ideas. Because a man likes to take the 
risks of the hunting-field or of the pursuit of big 
game, or because he is eager to fight personally when 
his country goes to war, it may follow that he is a 
brave man with plenty of nerve ; but it does not 
follow that he is therefore a fool, who regards our 
foreign relations in the same light as he would dan- 
gerous or exciting field-sports. The fact, indeed, is 
just the reverse. A man who has faced danger, 
either in hunting or in war, is the very last man to 
put other men's lives in peril without the sternest 
necessity, and is the first man to feel most keenly in 
this respect the heavy responsibility of a great office. 

In the space allotted to me I can only touch on 

^ The peace between Russia and Japan and the attitude of the Pres- 
ident in regard to the Morocco difficulty which have come to pass since 
his re-election in 1904, are interesting illustrations of the absurdity of 
the charge that he loved war for its own sake, and of the truth of what 
was written in this article in refutation of that charge. 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 167 

these two or three popular misconceptions which a 
personal friendship of many years' standing render 
more absurd to me than those which usually swarm 
about Presidents, and which, in this case, are being 
used for somewhat mean and low political objects. 
But in the many attacks made upon President Roose- 
velt there is one thought which has come again and 
again into my mind, knowing him as I do. Every 
nation, or rather every historic race, has certain attri- 
butes, in addition to the great and more obvious 
virtues, which it believes to be peculiarly its own, 
and in which it takes an especial pride. We of the 
United States like to think of the typical xVmerican 
as a brave and honest man, very human, and with 
no vain pretence to infallibility. We would have 
him simple in his home life, democratic in his ways, 
with the highest education which the world can give, 
kind to the weak, tender and loyal and true, never 
quarrelsome but never afraid to fight, with a strong, 
sane sense of humor, and with a strain of adventure 
in the blood, which we shall never cease to love until 
those ancestors of ours who conquered a continent 
have drifted a good deal farther into the past than 
is the case to-day. These are the qualities which all 
men admire and respect, and which thus combined we 
like to think peculiarly American. As I enumerate 
them I describe Theodore Roosevelt. The use to 
which he has put these qualities of heart and char- 



168 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

acter, as well as the fine abilities which are also his, 
is cut pretty deep into the history of our last twenty- 
five years, whether in the Commission of the Civil 
Service, in the Police Commission, in the Navy 
Department, in the Spanish War, at Albany, or in 
the White House. 



SENATOR HOAR* 

Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, Senators, and Gentle- 
men of the House of Representatives : 

I am here by your invitation, which is at once an 
honor and a command. I am to speak to you of a 
remarkable man and of a long and distinguished career 
of public service. I am to speak to you of a man who 
has taken his place in that noble company who have 
made Massachusetts what she has been in the past, 
what she is to-day, and to whom she owes her great 
part in history and her large influence in the Union 
of States. Here where Mr. Hoar rendered his first 
public service, here where he was five times commis- 
sioned to represent the State in the great council of 
the nation, is the fittest place in which to honor his 
memory and make record of our grief for his death. 
I cannot hope to do full justice to such a theme, 
but the sincerity of my endeavor and the affection 
which inspires it give me confidence to proceed and 
assure me of your indulgence. 

^ An address delivered on January 19, 1905, before the Legislature 
of the State of Massachusetts, in the Hall of tlie House of Represen- 
tatives, in the State House at Boston. 



170 SENATOR HOAR 

Men distinguished above their fellows, who have 
won a place in history, may be of interest and impor- 
tance to posterity as individuals or as representatives 
of their time, or in both capacities. Hobbes and Des- 
cartes, for instance, are chiefly if not wholly interesting 
for what they themselves were and for their contribu- 
tions to human thought, which might conceivably have 
been made at any epoch. On the other hand, Pepys 
and St, Simon, substantially contemporary with the 
two philosophers, are primarily of interest and im- 
portance as representative men, embodiments and 
exponents of the life and thought of their time. 
Benjamin Franklin, to take a later example, was not 
only deeply interesting as an individual, but he seemed 
to embody in himself the tendencies of thought and 
the entire meaning and attitude of the eighteenth 
century in its broadest significance. Mr. Hoar be- 
longs to the class which is illustrated in such a high 
degree by Franklin, for he has won and will hold his 
place in history not only by w^hat he was and what 
he did, but because he was a very representative man 
in a period fruitful in great events and conspicuous 
for the consolidation of the United States, — the great- 
est single fact of the last century, measured by its 
political and economic effect upon the fortunes of 
mankind and upon the history of the world. 

To appreciate properly and understand intelligently 
any man who has made substantial achievement in art 



1 



SENATOR HOAR 171 

or letters, in philosophy or science, in war or politics, 
and who has also lived to the full the life of his time, 
we must turn first to those conditions over which he 
himself had no control. In his inheritances, in the 
time and place of birth, in the influences and the at- 
mosphere of childhood and youth we can often find 
the key to the mystery which every human existence 
presents, and obtain a larger explanation of the mean- 
ing of the character and career before us than the 
man's own life and deeds will by themselves disclose. 
This is especially true of Mr. Hoar, for his race 
and descent, as well as his time and place of birth, 
are full of significance if we would rightly under- 
stand one who was at once a remarkable and a 
highly representative man. He came of a purely 
English stock. His family in England were people 
of consideration and substance, possessing both edu- 
cation and established position before America was 
discovered. Belonging in the seventeenth century to 
that class of prosperous merchants and tradesmen, of 
country gentlemen and farmers which gave to Eng- 
land Cromwell and Hampden, Eliot and Pym, they 
were Puritans in religion and in politics supporters of 
the Parliament and opponents of the King. Charles 
Hoar, sheriff of Gloucester and enrolled in the record 
of the city government as *' Generosus," or "gentle- 
man," died in 1638. Two years later his widow, 
Joanna Hoar, with five of her children, emigrated 



172 SENATOR HOAR 

to New England. One of the sons, Leonard Hoar, 
chosen by his father to go to Oxford and become a 
mmister, entered Harvard College, then just founded, 
and graduated there in 1650. He soon after returned 
to England, where he was presented to a living under 
the Protectorate. He married Bridget, the daughter 
of John Lisle, commonly called Lord Lisle, one of the 
regicides assassinated later at Lausanne, where he 
had taken refuge, by royal emissaries after the King 
had come to his own again. John Lisle's wife, the 
Lady Alicia, died on the scaffold in 1685, the most 
famous and pathetic victim in the tragedy of Jeffreys' 
" Bloody Assize." Her son-in-law, Leonard Hoar, 
ejected from his living under the Act of Uniformity, 
studied medicine, and returning to New England ten 
years later became in 1672 president of Harvard 
College and died in 1675. 

Senator Hoar was descended from an elder brother 
of the president of Harvard, John Hoar, evidently a 
man of as strong character and marked abilities as the 
rest of his family. The old records contain more than 
one account of his clashings with the intolerant and 
vigorous theocracy which governed Massachusetts, and 
of the fines and imprisonments which he endured; 
but he never seems either to have lost the respect of 
the community or to have checked his speech. We 
get a bright glimpse of him in 1690, when Sewall 
says, in his diary on November 8 of that year : 



SENATOR HOAR 173 

" Jno. Hoar comes into the lobby, and sais he comes from 
the Lord, by the Lord, to speak for the Lord ; complains 
that sins as bad as Sodom's found here." 

In every generation following we find men of the 
same marked character who were graduates of Har- 
vard, active citizens, successful in their callings, taking 
a full share of public duties and in the life of their 
times. Senator Hoar's great-grandfather, who had 
served in the old French war, and his grandfather 
were both in the fight at Concord Bridge. His father, 
Samuel Hoar, was one of the most distinguished law- 
yers in Massachusetts. He served in both branches of 
the State legislature, and was a Member of Congress. 
Honored throughout the State, his most conspicuous 
action was his journey to Charleston to defend certain 
negro sailors ; and from that city, where his life was in 
danger, he was expelled because he desired to give 
his legal services to protect men of another and an 
enslaved race. 

On his mother's side Senator Hoar was a descend- 
ant of the John Sherman who landed in Massachusetts 
in 1630 and became the progenitor of a family which 
has been extraordinarily prolific in men of high ability 
and distinction. In the century just closed this family 
gave to the country and to history one of our most bril- 
liant soldiers, one of our most eminent statesmen and 
financiers, and through the female line the great law- 
yer and orator, Mr. Evarts, and E. Rockwood Hoar, 



174 



SENATOR HOAR 



distinguished alike as judge, as Member of Congress, 
and as Attorney-General of the United States. In 
the eighteenth century we owe to the same blood and 
name one of the most conspicuous of the great men 
who made the Revolution and founded the United 
States, — Roger Sherman, signer of the Declaration of 
Independence, signer of the articles of Confederation, 
signer of the Constitution, first Senator from Connec- 
ticut, and grandfather of Senator Hoar, as he was 
also of Mr. Evarts. I have touched upon this gene- 
alogy more, perhaps, than is usual upon such occa- 
sions, not only because it is remarkable, but because 
it seems to me full of light and meaning in connection 
with those who. in the years just past, had the right 
to claim it for their own. We see these people, when 
American history begins, identified with the cause of 
constitutional freedom and engaged in resistance to 
what they deemed tyranny in church and state. They 
became exiles for their faith, and the blood of the 
victims of Stuart revenge is sprinkled on their gar- 
ments. They venture their lives again at the outbreak 
of our own Revolution. They take a continuous part 
in public affairs. They feel it to be their business to 
help the desolate and oppressed, from John Hoar shel- 
tering and succoring the Christian Indians, in the dark 
and bloody days of King Philip's war, to Samuel Hoar, 
going forth into the midst of a bitterly hostile com- 
munity to defend the helpless negroes. The tradition 



SENATOR HOAR 175 

of sound learning, the profound belief in the highest 
education, illustrated by Leonard Hoar in the seven- 
teenth century, are never lost or weakened in the 
succeeding generations. Through all their history 
runs unchanged the deep sense of public responsibil- 
ity, of patriotism, and of devotion to high ideals of 
conduct. The stage upon which they played their 
several parts might be large or small, but the light 
which guided them was always the same. They were 
Puritans of the Puritans. As the centuries passed, 
the Puritan was modified in many ways, but the ele- 
mental qualities of the powerful men who had crushed 
crown and mitre in a common ruin, altered the course 
of English history, and founded a new State in a new 
world, remained unchanged. 

So parented and so descended, Mr. Hoar inherited 
certain deep-rooted conceptions of duty, of character, 
and of the conduct of life, which were as much a part 
of his being as the color of his eyes or the shape of 
his hand. Where and when was he born to this 
noble heritage ? We must ask and answer this ques- 
tion, for there is a world of suggestion in the place 
and time of a man's birth, when that man has come 
to have a meaning and an importance to his own 
generation as well as to those which succeed it in the 
slow procession of the years. 

Concord, proclaimed by Webster as one of the 
glories of Massachusetts which no untoward fate 



176 SENATOR HOAR 

could wrest from her, was the place of his birth. 
About the quiet village were gathered all the austere 
traditions of the colonial time. It had witnessed the 
hardships of the early settlers ; it had shared and 
shuddered in the horrors of Indian wars ; it had seen 
the slow and patient conquest of the wilderness. 
There within its boundaries had blazed high a great 
event, catching the eyes of a careless world which 
little dreamed how far the fire then lighted would 
spread. Along its main road, overarched by elms, 
the soldiers of England marched that pleasant April 
morning. There is the bridge where the farmers re- 
turned the British fire and advanced. There is the 
tomb of the two British soldiers who fell in the 
skirmish, and whose grave marks the spot where 
the power of England on the North American conti- 
nent first began to ebb. Truly there is no need of 
shafts of stone or statues of bronze, for the whole 
place is a monument to the deeds which there were 
done. The very atmosphere is redolent of great 
memories ; the gentle ripple of the placid river, the 
low voice of the wind among the trees, all murmur 
the story of patriotism and teach devotion to the 
nation, which, from " the bridge that arched the 
flood," set forth upon its onward march. 

And then, just as Mr. Hoar began to know his 
birthplace, the town entered upon a new phase, which 
was to give it a place in literature and in the develop- 



SENATOR HOAR 177 

ment of modern thought as eminent as that which it 
had already gained in the history of the country. 
Emerson made Concord his home in 1835, Haw- 
thorne came there to Hve seven years later, and 
Thoreau, a native of the town, was growing to man- 
hood in those same years. To Mr. Hoar's inheri- 
tance of public service, of devotion to duty, and of 
lofty ideals of conduct, to the family influences which 
surrounded him and which all pointed to work and 
achievement as the purpose and rewards of life, were 
added those of the place where he lived, the famous 
little town which drew from the past lessons of pride 
and love of country, and offered in the present ex- 
amples of lives given to literature and philosophy, to 
the study of nature, and to the hopes and destiny of 
man here and hereafter. 

Thus highly gifted in his ancestry, in his family, 
and in his traditions, as well as in the place and the 
community in which he was to pass the formative 
years of boyhood and youth, Mr. Hoar was equally 
fortunate in the time of his birth, .which often means 
so much in the making of a character and career. 
He was born on the 29th of August, 1826. Super- 
ficially it was one of the most uninteresting periods 
in the history of Western civilization — dominated in 
Europe by small men, mean in its hopes, low in its 
ambitions. But beneath the surface vast forces were 
germinating and gathering, which in their develop- 



12 



178 SENATOR HOAR 

ment were to affect profoundly both Europe and 
America. 

The great movement which, beginning with the re- 
volt of the American colonies, had wrought the 
French Revolution, convulsed Europe, and made 
Napoleon possible, had spent itself and sunk into ex- 
haustion at Waterloo. The reaction reigned supreme. 
It was the age of the Metternichs and Castlereaghs, 
of the Eldons and Liverpools, of Spanish and Neapol- 
itan Bourbons. With a stupidity equalled only by 
their confidence and insensibility, these men and 
others like them sought to establish again the old 
tyrannies, and believed that they could restore a dead 
system and revive a vanished society. They utterly 
failed to grasp the fact that where the red-hot plough- 
shares of the French Revolution had passed the old 
crops could never flourish again. The White Terror 
swept over France, and a little later the Due Decazes, 
the only man who understood the situation, was 
driven from power because he tried to establish the 
sane conditions upon which alone the Bourbon mon- 
archy could hope to survive. The Holy Alliance was 
formed to uphold autocracy and crush out the aspi- 
rations of any people who sought to obtain the sim- 
plest rights and the most moderate freedom. To us, 
Webster's denunciation of the Holy Alliance sounds 
like an academic exercise, designed simply to display 
the orator's power, but to the men of that day it had 



SENATOR HOAR 179 

a most real and immediate meaning. The quiet 
which Russia and Austria called peace reigned over 
much wider regions than Warsaw. England cringed 
and burned incense before the bewigged and padded 
effigy known as " George the Fourth." France did 
the bidding of the dullest and most unforgetting of 
the Bourbons. Any one who ventured to criticise any 
existing arrangement was held up to scorn and hatred 
as an enemy of society, driven into exile like Byron 
and Shelley, or cast into prison like Leigh Hunt. 

But the great forces which had caused both the 
American and French revolutions were not dead. 
They were only gathering strength for a renewed 
movement, and the first voices of authority which 
broke the deadly quiet came from England and the 
United States. When the Holy Alliance stretched 
out its hand to thrust back the Spanish colonies into 
bondage Canning declared that he would call in the 
" New World to redress the balance of the Old," and 
Monroe announced that in that New World there 
should be no further European colonization, and no 
extension of the monarchical principle. Greece rose 
against the Turks, and lovers of liberty everywhere 
went to her aid ; for even the Holy Alliance did not 
dare to make the Sultan a partner in a combination 
which professed to be the defender of Christianity as 
well as of despotic government. 

When Mr. Hoar was born the Greek revolution 



180 SENATOR HOAR 

was afoot, the first stirrings of the oppressed and 
divided nationalities had begun, the liberal move- 
ment was again lifting its head and preparing to 
confront the intrenched, uncompromising forces of 
the reaction. When he was four years old Concord 
heard of the fighting in the Paris streets during the 
three days of July, and of the fall of the Bourbon 
monarchy. When he was six years old the passage 
of the Reform Bill brought to England a peaceful rev- 
olution instead of one in arms, and crumbled into 
dust the system of Castlereagh and Liverpool and 
Wellington. 

The change and movement thus manifested were 
not confined to politics. As Mr. Hoar went back 
and forth to school in the Concord Academy the 
new forces were spreading into every field of thought 
and action. Revolt against conventions in art and 
literature and against existing arrangements of society 
was as ardent as that against political oppression, 
while creeds and dogmas were called in question 
as unsparingly as the right of the few to govern 
the many. In England one vested abuse after an- 
other was swept away by the Reform Parliament. 
It was discovered that Shelley and Byron, the out- 
laws of twenty years before, and Keats, the despised 
and rejected of critics, were among the greatest of 
England's poets. Dickens startled the world and 
won thousands of readers by bringing into his novels 



SENATOR HOAR 181 

whole classes of human beings unknown to polite fic- 
tion since the days of Fielding, and by plunging into 
the streets of London to find among the poor the 
downtrodden, and the criminal characters which he 
made immortal. Carlyle was crying out against 
venerated shams in his fierce satire on the Philos- 
ophy of Clothes. Macaulay was vindicating the 
men of the great rebellion to a generation which 
had been brought up to believe that the Puritans 
were little better than cutthroats, and that Oliver 
Cromwell was a common military usurper. The 
English establishment was shaken by the Oxford 
movement, which carried Newman to Rome, drove 
others to the extreme of scepticism, and breathed 
life into the torpid church, sending its ministers 
out into the world of men as missionaries and so- 
cial reformers. 

In France, after the days of July, the romantic 
movement took full possession of literature, and 
the Shakespeare whom Voltaire rejected became to 
the new school the head of the corner. The sacred 
Alexandrine of the days of Louis XIV gave way to 
varied measures which found their inspiration in the 
poets of the Renaissance. The plays of Hugo and 
Dumas drove the classical drama from the stage; 
the verse of De Musset, the marvellous novels of 
Balzac were making a new era in the literature 
of France. 



182 SENATOR HOAR 

Italy, alive with conspiracies, was stirring from 
one end to the other with aspirations for national 
nnity and with resistance to the tyranny of Nea- 
politan Bourbons and Austrian Hapsburgs. Hun- 
gary was moving restlessly; Poland was struggling 
vainly with her fetters. Plans, too, for social re- 
generation were filling the minds of men. St. 
Simon's works had come into fashion. It was the 
age of Fourier and Proudhon, of Bentham and 
Comte. 

Such were the voices and such the influences which 
then came across the Atlantic, very powerful and very 
impressive to the young men of that day, especially 
to those who were beginning to reflect highly and 
seriously upon the meaning of life. And all about 
them in America the same portents were visible. 
Everything was questioned. Men dreamed dreams 
and saw visions. There is a broad, an impassable 
gulf between the deep and beautiful thought, the 
mysticism and the transcendentalism of Emerson, on 
the one hand, and the wild vagaries of Miller and of 
the Second Adventists, or the crude vulgarity of 
Joseph Smith, on the other; yet were they all mani- 
festations of the religious cravings which had suc- 
ceeded the frigid scepticism of the eighteenth century 
and the dull torpor of the period of reaction. So, too, 
Brook Farm and the Oneida Community were widely 
different attempts to put into practice some of the 



SENATOR HOAR 183 

schemes of social regeneration then swarming in the 
imagination of men. Literature was uplifting itself 
to successes never yet reached in the New World. It 
was the period of Poe and Hawthorne, of Longfellow 
and Lowell, of Holmes and Whittier. Bancroft and 
Prescott were already at work ; Motley was beginning 
his career with romantic novels. And then behind 
all this new literature, all these social experiments, 
all these efforts to pierce the mystery of man's exist- 
ence, was slowly rising the agitation against slavery, 
a dread reality destined to take possession of the 
country's history. These influences, these voices 
were everywhere when Mr. Hoar, a vigorous, clever, 
thoughtful boy of sixteen, left his school at Concord 
and entered Harvard College in 1842. Brook Farm 
had been started in the previous year ; the next 
was to witness Miller's millennium ; he was half- 
way through college when Joseph Smith was killed 
at Nauvoo. Li his third year the long battle which 
John Quincy Adams had waged for nearly a decade 
in behalf of the right of petition and against the slave 
power, and which had stirred to its depths the con- 
science of New England, culminated in the old man's 
famous victory by the repeal of the " gag rule." 

As Mr. Hoar drew to manhood the air was full of 
revolt and questioning in thought, in literature, in 
religion, in society, and in politics. The dominant 
note was faith in humanity and in the perfectibility 



184 SENATOR HOAR 

of man. Break up impeding, stifling customs, strike 
down vested abuses, set men free to think, to write, 
to work, to vote as they chose and all would be well. 
To Mr. Hoar, with his strong inheritances, with the 
powerful influences of his family and home, the spirit 
of the time came with an irresistible appeal. It was 
impossible to him to be deaf to its voice or to shut 
his ears to the poignant cry against oppression which 
sounded through the world of Europe and America 
with a fervor and pathos felt only in the great mo- 
ments of human history. But he was the child of 
the Puritans. Their elemental qualities were in his 
blood, and the Puritans joined to the highest idealism 
the practical attributes which had made them in the 
days of their glory the greatest soldiers and statesmen 
in Europe. Macaulay, in a well-known passage, says 
of Cromwell's soldiers that — 

" They moved to victory with the precision of machines, 
while burning with the wildest fanaticism of Crusaders." 

Mr. Hoar, by nature, by inheritance, by every 
influence of time and place, an idealist, had also 
the strong good sense, the practical shrewdness, 
and the reverence for law and precedent which were 
likewise part of his birthright. He pa%sed through 
college with distinction, went to his brother's office 
for a year, to the Harvard Law School, and thence, 
in 184^, to Worcester, where he cast in his fortune 



SENATOR HOAR 185 

with the young and growing city which ever after 
was to be his home. But his personal fortunes did 
not absorb him. He looked out on the world about 
him with an eager gaze. As he said in his old age, 

" Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive." 

The profound conviction that every man had a 
public duty was strong within him. The spirit of 
the time was on him. He would fain do his share. 
When the liberal movement culminated in Europe in 
1848 he was deeply stirred. When, a little later, 
Kossuth came to the United States the impression 
then made upon him by the cause and the elo- 
quence of the great Hungarian sank into • his heart 
and was never effaced. He, too, meant to do his part, 
however humble, in the work of his time. But he 
did not content himself with barren sympathy for the 
oppressed beyond the seas, nor did he give himself to 
any of the vague schemes then prevalent for the re- 
generation of society. He turned to the question 
nearest at hand, to the work of redressing what he 
believed to be the wrong and the sin of his native 
land — human slavery. He did not join the aboli- 
tionists, but set himself to fight slavery in the effect- 
ive manner which finally brought its downfall — by 
organized political effort within the precincts of the 
Constitution and the laws. 

Mr. Hoar had been bred a Whig. His first vote 



186 SENATOR HOAR 

in 1847 was for a Whig governor, and Daniel "Webster 
was the close friend of his father and brother. He 
had been brought up on Webster's reply to Hayne, 
and as a college student he had heard him deliver 
the second Bunker Hill oration. In that day the 
young Whigs of Massachusetts looked up to Webster 
with an adoring admiration. They — 

" followed him, honored him, 
Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, 
Learned his great language, caught his clear accents. 
Made him their pattern to live and to die." 

But the great command of conscience to Mr Hoar 
was to resist slavery, and the test of his faith was at 
hand. He was to break from the dominant party 
of the State. Webster was to become to him in very 
truth '' The Lost Leader." He was to join with 
those who called the great Senator " Ichabod," and 
not until he himself was old was he to revert to his 
young admiration of that splendid intellect and that 
unrivalled eloquence. But when the ordeal came 
there was no shrinking. Charles Allen, of Wor- 
cester, amid derisive shouts, announced at Phila- 
delphia, after the nomination of General Taylor, that 
the Whig party was dissolved, and Mr. Hoar went 
with him. After the delegates had returned to 
Massachusetts Mr Hoar rendered his first political 
service by addressing and mailing a circular drawn by 
his elder brother, E. Rock wood Hoar, which invited 



SENATOR HOAR 187 

the antislavery Whigs to meet at "Worcester and take 
steps to oppose the election of either General Taylor 
or of General Cass, the Democratic candidate. The 
convention was held in Worcester on June 28, 
became the Free Soil party, and gave their support 
to Van Buren. The result of the movement nation- 
ally was to defeat the Democrats in New York, as 
the Liberty party had turned the scales against Clay 
four years before. In Massachusetts the AVorcester 
convention marked the appearance of a group of 
young men who were to form a new school of states- 
men, and who were destined to control Massachusetts 
and to play a leading part in guiding the fortunes 
of the nation for forty years to come. 

The Federalists, who had formed and organized 
the Government of the United States, and who were 
essentially constructive statesmen of great power, 
had followed the men of the Revolution, and in turn 
had been succeeded by the Whigs. Under the lead 
of Webster and Choate, of Everett and Winthrop, 
and others hardly less distinguished, the Whigs con- 
trolled Massachusetts for a generation. They never 
had seemed stronger, despite Webster's personal dis- 
content, than on the eve of Taylor's election. But 
it was to be their last triumph. The men, mostly 
young, who gathered at Worcester were to displace 
them and themselves take and hold power for nearly 
forty years. There at Worcester, with Samuel Hoar, 



188 



SENATOR HOAR 



one of the pioneers of earlier days, presiding, were 
assembled the men of the future. Charles Sumner, 
Charles Francis Adams, Henry Wilson, E. R. Hoar, 
Charles Allen, and Richard H. Dana spoke to the 
convention, while Palfrey the historian, John A. 
Andrew, then a young, unknown lawyer, and Anson 
Burlingame, although not present, joined with and 
supported them. These were not only new men, but 
they represented a new political school. The Whigs, 
inheriting the Federalist doctrines of liberal construc- 
tion, were essentially an economic party, devoted to 
the industrial and material development of the coun- 
try. The men who supplanted them were primarily 
and above all human-rights statesmen, as befitted the 
time. To them the rights of humanity came first, 
and all economic questions second. With these 
men and with this school Mr. Hoar united himself 
heart and soul, swayed by the sternest and strong- 
est convictions, for which no sacrifice was too great, 
no labors too hard. He was perhaps the youngest 
of the men destined to high distinction who met 
in Worcester in 1848; he was certainly the last great 
survivor of this remarkable group in the largest fields 
of national statesmanship. 

Thus, then, was the beginning made. The next 
step was an unexpected one. There was a Free-soil 
meeting in Worcester in 1850. Charles Allen, who 
was to speak, was late, and a cry went up from the 



SENATOR HOAR 189 

impatient audience of " Hoar ! " " Hoar ! " Neither 
father nor brother was present, so Mr. Hoar took 
the platform, and speaking from the fulness of his 
heart and with the fervor of his cause, won a success 
which put him in demand for meetings throughout 
the county. The following year he was made chair- 
man of the Free-Soil county committee, proved him- 
self a most efficient organizer, and carried all but six 
of the fifty-two towns in the county. Then, greatly 
to his surprise, he was nominated for the legislature. 
He accepted, was elected, became the leader of the 
Free Soilers in the house, and distinguished himself 
there by his advocacy of the factory acts limiting the 
hours of labor, in which Massachusetts was the pio- 
neer. He retired at the end of the year for which 
he had been chosen. In 1857 he was nominated, 
again unexpectedly, to the State senate, was elected, 
served one year with marked distinction, and then 
retired, as he had from the house. He had, indeed, 
no desire for office. On coming to Worcester he had 
been offered a partnership by Emory Washburn, soon 
after governor of the State, and later a professor in 
the Harvard Law School. This connection brought 
him at once into one of the largest practices in the 
county, and his partner's election to the governor- 
ship, which soon followed, gave him entire responsi- 
bility for the business of the firm. He was not only 
very busy, but he was devoted to his profession, for 



190 SENATOR HOAR 

he possessed legal abilities of the highest order. 
Yet he was never too busy to give his services freely 
to the great cause of human rights, which he had 
so much at heart. He labored unceasingly in his 
resistance to slavery and in building up the Republi- 
can party, which during that time was fast rising 
into power, both in State and nation. 

It is impossible to follow him through those event- 
ful years when freedom and slavery clinched in a 
death struggle far out in Kansas, and the black 
clouds of Civil War were gathering darkly on the 
horizon. But there are two incidents of that period 
which illustrate Mr. Hoar's character so strongly 
that they can not be passed over. In 1854 the 
Know Nothing movement broke out with all the 
force of a tropical hurricane. To men painfully strug- 
gling to bring a great cause to judgment against the 
resistance of the old and dominant parties it offered 
many temptations. The new party was overwhelm- 
ing in its strength ; it evidently could not last indefi- 
nitely ; it was sound on the slavery question, and 
it promised to act as a powerful solvent and dis- 
integrate the old organizations which every Free 
Soiler rightly thought was vital to their own success. 
But Mr. Hoar, unmoved by the storm, believing in 
freedom of conscience as he believed in political free- 
dom, set himself in stern opposition to a party which 
rested on the principle of discrimination and ostra- 



SENATOR HOAR 191 

cism against all men of a certain race or of a given 
creed. No public clamor then or ever was able to 
sway him from those ideals of faith and conduct 
which were the guiding stars of his life. 

The other incident was widely different and even 
more characteristic. If there was one thing more 
hateful to Mr. Hoar than another in those days, it 
was the return of runaway slaves to the South by 
the authorities of Northern States. Massachusetts 
was the scene of some of the worst examples of this 
bad business, and the wrath of the people was deeply 
stirred. In 1854 a deputy marshal connected with 
the work of slave catching arrived in Worcester. 
His presence became known, and an angry mob, ut- 
terly uncontrollable by the little police force of the 
town, gathered about the hotel. The man was in 
imminent danger and stricken with terror. No one 
loathed a slave catcher more than Mr. Hoar, but the 
idealist gave way to the lover of law and ordered lib- 
erty. Mr. Hoar went out and addressed the crowd, 
then gave his arm to the terrified man, walked with 
him down the street, surrounded by a few friends, 
and in this way got him to the station and out of 
the town, bruised by blows but alive and in safety. 

So the years of that memorable time went by. 
Mr. Hoar worked diligently in his profession, rising 
to the front rank of the bar and laboring in season 
and out of season in support of the Republican party 



192 SENATOR HOAR 

and of the administration of Lincoln when the Civil 
War came. He had neither thought nor desire for 
public life or public office. He wished to succeed in 
his profession, to live quietly at home among his 
books, and he cherished the modest ambition of one 
day becoming a judge of the supreme court of the 
State. But it was ordered otherwise. In 1868 
Mr. HoAE went to Europe, worn out by hard work 
at his profession. There were at the moment many 
candidates for the nomination for Congress in the 
Worcester district, and most of them were strong and 
able men. In this condition of affairs Mr. Hoar con- 
sented to let some of his friends bring his name for- 
ward, and then took his departure for Europe. Travel 
and rest brought back his health, so that he returned 
home eager for his profession, and regretting that he 
had allowed his name to be suggested as that of a 
candidate for any position, only to find himself nomi- 
nated for Congress on the first ballot taken in the 
convention. Thus his life in Washington began, with 
no desire or expectation on his part of a service of 
more than one or two terms. At the end of his sec- 
ond term he announced his intention of withdrawing, 
and was persuaded to reconsider it. The fourth time 
he was obliged again to withdraw a refusal to run, 
because it was a year of peril to the party. The next 
time the refusal was final, and his successor was nom- 
inated and elected. 



SENATOR HOAR 193 

His eight years in the House were crowded with 
work. He began with a very moderate estimate of 
his own capacities, but his power of eloquent speech 
and his knowledge and ability as a lawyer soon 
brought him forward. When Mr. S. S. Cox of 
New York sneered at him one day, in debate, say- 
ing that " Massachusetts had not sent her Hector 
to the field," and Mr. Hoar replied that there was no 
need to send Hector to meet Thersites, the House rec- 
ognized a power of quick and sharp retort, of which 
it was well to beware. 

When Mr. Hoar entered the House Congress was 
engaged in completing the work which by the war 
and the emancipation of the slaves had marked the 
triumph of that mighty struggle for human freedom 
and National Union to which he had given his youth 
and early manhood. He was therefore absorbed in the 
questions raised by the reconstruction policy, which 
involved the future of the race he had hoped to free ; 
and he labored, especially in the interests of that race, 
for the establishment of national education, which, 
after years of effort constantly renewed, ultimately 
failed of accomplishment. But the Civil War, besides 
its great triumphs of a Union preserved and a race set 
free, had left also the inevitable legacy of such con- 
vulsions, great social and political demoralization in 
all parts of the country and in all phases of public and 
private life. Political patronage ran riot among the 

13 



194 SENATOR HOAR 

offices and made Mr. Hoar one of the most ardent, as 
he was one of the earliest and most effective, of civil- 
service reformers. Unhappily, however, the poison 
of the time penetrated much higher in the body poli- 
tic than the small routine offices so sorely misused 
under the " spoils system." It was an era when Cab- 
inet officers and party leaders were touched and 
smirched, and when one Congressional investigation 
followed hard upon another. Mr. Hoar's keenness 
as a lawyer, his power as a cross-examiner, and his 
fearless and indignant honesty caused the House to 
turn to him for this work of punishment and purifi- 
cation, which was as painful as it was necessary. He 
was a member of the committee to investigate the 
Freedmen's Bureau, and took part in the report which 
exonerated General Howard. He was one of the 
House managers in the Belknap trial and the leading 
member of the committee which investigated the 
Union Pacific Railroad and the scandals of the Credit 
Mobilier. 

But his greatest and most distinguished service came 
to him just as his career in the House was drawing 
to a close. The demoralization of the war, the work- 
ing out of reconstruction, the abnormal conditions 
which war and reconstruction together had produced, 
culminated in 1876 in a disputed Presidential election. 
Into the events of that agitated winter it is needless 
to enter. The situation was in the highest degree 



SENATOR HOAR 195 

perilous, and every one recognized that a grave crisis 
had arisen in the history of the republic. Finally an 
electoral tribunal was established which settled the 
controversy and removed the danger. Upon that tri- 
bunal Mr. HoAK was placed by a Democratic Speaker 
as one of the representatives of the House, and this 
appointment alone was sufficient to fix his place as 
one of the political leaders of the country. With this 
great and responsible task accomplished, his career in 
the House drew to a close. Yet even while he was 
thus engaged a new and larger service came to him 
by his election to the Senate. He was then, as when 
he entered the House, without desire for public office. 
He still longed to return to his library and his profes- 
sion, and allow the pleasures and honors as well as the 
trials of public life to pass by. But again it was not 
to be. There was at that time a strong and deep- 
rooted opposition to the dominance of General Butler 
in the politics of Massachusetts, and this opposition, 
determined to have a Senator in full sympathy with 
them, took up Mr. Hoar as their candidate and, 
without effort or even desire on his part, elected him. 
So he passed from the House to the Senate. He 
entered the Senate a leader, and a leader he remained 
to the end, ever growing in strength and influence, 
ever filling a larger place, until he was recognized 
everywhere as one of the first of American statesmen, 
until his words were listened to by all his countrymen. 



196 SENATOR HOAR 

until there gathered about him the warm light of 
history, and men saw when he rose in debate — 
" The past of the nation in battle there." 

Neither time nor the occasion permits me to trace 
in fitting detail that long and fine career in the Sen- 
ate. Mr. Hoar was a great Senator. He brought 
to his service an intense patriotism, a trained intellect, 
wide learning, a profound knowledge of law and his- 
tory, an unsullied character, and great abilities. All 
these gifts he expended without measure or stint in 
his country's service. His industry was extraordinary 
and unceasing. Whatever he spared in life, he never 
spared himself in the performance of his public duty. 
/ The laws settling the Presidential succession, provid- 
I ing for the count of the electoral vote, for the final 
I repeal of the tenure-of-ofhce act, for a uniform system 
I of bankruptcy, are among the more conspicuous mon- 
uments of his industry and energy and of his power 
1 as a constructive lawmaker and statesman. Nor did 
his activity cease with the work of the Senate. He 
took a large part in public discussion in every polit- 
ical campaign and in the politics of his own State. 
He was a delegate to four national conventions, a 
leading figure in all, and in 1880 he presided at Chi- 
cago, with extraordinary power, tact, and success, 
over the stormiest convention, with a single exception, 
known to our history. 

In the Senate he was a great debater, quick in 



SENATOR HOAR 197 

retort, with all the resources of his mind always at 
his command. Although he had no marked gifts of 
presence, voice, or delivery, he was none the less a 
master of brilliant and powerful speech. His style 
was noble and dignified, with a touch of the stateli- 
ness of the eighteentli century, rich in imagery and 
allusion, full of the apt quotations which an unerring 
taste, an iron memory, and the widest reading com- 
bined to furnish. When he was roused, when his 
imagination was fired, his feelings engaged, or his 
indignation awakened, he was capable of a passionate 
eloquence which touched every chord of emotion and 
left no one who listened to him unmoved. At these 
moments, whether he spoke on the floor of the Senate, 
in the presence of a great popular audience, or in the 
intimacy of private conversation, the words glowed, 
the sentences marshalled themselves in stately se- 
quence, and the idealism which was the dominant 
note of his life was heard sounding clear and strong 
above and beyond all pleas of interest or expediency. 
Thus we come back to the light which shone upon 
his early years and which never failed him to the 
last. Mr. Hoar was born in the period of revolt. 
He joined the human-rights statesmen of that remark- 
able time. He shared in their labors; he saw the 
once unpopular cause rise up victorious through the 
stress and storm of battle ; he beheld the visions of 
his youth change into realities, and his country 



198 SENATOR HOAR 

emerge triumphant from the awful ordeal of civil 
war. He came into public life in season to join in 
completing the work of the men who had given them- 
selves up to the destruction of slavery and the preser- 
vation of the Union. But even then the mighty 
emotions of those terrible years were beginning to 
subside. The seas which had been running moun- 
tain high were going down, the tempestuous winds 
before which the ship of state had driven for long 
years were dropping and bid fair to come out from 
another quarter. The country was passing into a 
new political period. Questions involving the rights 
of men and the wrongs of humanity gave place 
throughout the world of Western civilization to those 
of trade and commerce, of tariffs and currency and 
finance. The world returned to a period when the 
issues were economic, industrial, and commercial, and 
when the vast organizations of capital and labor 
opened up a new series of problems. In the United 
States, as the issues of the war faded into the distance 
and material prosperity was carried to heights 
undreamed of before, the nation turned inevitably 
from the completed conquest of its own continent to 
expansion beyond its borders, and to the assertion of 
a control and authority which were its due among 
the great powers of the earth. Many years before 
Mr. Hoar's death the change was complete, and he 
found himself a leader in the midst of a generation 



SENATOR HOAR 199 

whose interests and whose conceptions differed widely 
from those to which his own life had been devoted. 
He took np the new questions with the same zeal and 
the same power which he had brought to the old. 
He made himself master of the tariff, aided thereto 
by his love of the great industrial community which 
he had seen grow up about him at Worcester, and 
whose success he attributed to the policy of protec- : 
tion. In the same way he studied, reflected upon, \ 
and discussed problems of banking and currency and 
the conflict of standards. But at bottom all these 
questions were alien to him. However thoroughly 
he mastered them, however wisely he dealt with 
them, they never touched his heart. His inheritance 
of sound sense, of practical intelligence, of reverence 
for precedent, rendered it easy for him to appreciate 
and understand the value and importance of matters 
involving industrial prosperity and the growth of 
trade ; but the underlying idealism made these ques- 
tions at the same time seem wholly inferior to the 
nobler aspirations upon which his youth was nur- 
tured. An idealist he was born, and so he lived andTl 
died. Neither scepticism nor experience could chill 
the hopes or dim the visions of his young manhood. 
He was imbued with the profound and beautiful faith 
in humanity characteristic of that earlier time. He 
lived to find himself in an atmosphere where this 
faith was invaded by doubt and questioning. 



200 SENATOR HOAR 

How much that great movement, driven forward 
by faith in humanity and hope for its future, to 
which Mr. Hoar gave all that was best of his youth 
and manhood, accomplished, it is not easy to esti- 
mate. It is enough to say that the results were vast 
in their beneficence. But the wrongs and burdens 
which it swept away were known by the sharp 
experience of actual suffering only to the generations 
which had endured them. The succeeding genera- 
tion had never felt the hardships and oppressions 
which had perished, but were keenly alive to all 
the evils which survived. Hence the inevitable 
tendency to doubt the worth of any great movement 
which has come, done its work, and gone, asserted 
itself; for there are no social or political panaceas, 
although mankind never ceases to look for them and 
expect them. To a period of enthusiasm, aspiration, 
and faith, resulting in great changes and in great 
benefits to humanity, a period of scepticism and 
reaction almost always succeeds. The work goes 
on, what has been accomplished is made sure, much 
good is done, but the spirit of the age alters. 

The new generation inclined to the view of science 
and history that there were ineradicable differences 
between the races of men. They questioned the 
theory that opportunity was equivalent to capacity ; 
they refused to believe that a people totally ignorant 
or to whom freedom and self-government were un- 



SENATOR HOAR 201 

known could carry on successfully the complex 
machinery of constitutional and representative gov- 
ernment which it had cost the English-speaking 
peoples centuries of effort and training to bring 
forth. To expect this seemed to the new time as 
unreasonable as to believe that an Ashantee could 
regulate a watch because it was given to him, or an 
Aruwhimi dwarf run a locomotive to anything but 
wreck because the lever was placed in his hands. 
Through all these shifting phases of thought and 
feeling Mr. Hoak remained unchanged, a man of 
'48, his ideals unaltered, his faith in the quick per- 
fectibility of humanity unshaken, his hopes for the 
world of men still glowing with the warmth and 
light of eager youth. And when all is said, when 
science and scepticism and experience have spoken 
their last word, the ideals so cherished by him still 
stand as noble and inspiring as the faith upon which 
they rested was beautiful and complete. The man 
who steered his course by stars like these could 
never lose his reckoning or be at variance with the 
eternal verities which alone can lift us from the 
earth. His own experience, moreover, although 
mingled with disappointments, as is the common 
fate of man, could but confirm his faith and hope. 
He had dreamed dreams and seen visions in his 
youth, but he had beheld those dreams turn to 
reality and those visions come true in a manner 



202 SENATOR HOAR 

rarely vouchsafed. He had seen the slave freed and 
the Union saved. He had shared with his country- 
men in their marvellous onward march to prosperity 
and power. He had seen rise up from the revolt 
of 1848 a free and united Italy, a united Germany, 
a French republic, a free Hungary. He would have 
been a cynic and a sceptic indeed if he had wavered 
in his early faith. And so his ideals and the tri- 
umphs they had won made him full of confidence 
and courage, even to the end. He, too, could say: 

" I find earth not gray, but rosy ; 

Heaven not grim, but fair of liue. 
Do I stoop ? I pluck a posy. 

Do I stand and stare ? All 's blue." 

This splendid optimism, this lofty faith in his 
country, this belief in humanity never failed. They 
were with him in his boyhood ; they were still with 
him, radiant and vital, in the days when he lay dying 
in Worcester. It was all part of his philosophy of 
life, knit in the fibres of his being and pervading his 
most sacred beliefs. To him the man who could not 
recognize the limitations of life on earth was as com- 
plete a failure as the man who, knowing the limita- 
tions, sat down content among them. To him the 
man who knew the limitations but ever strove toward 
the perfection he could not reach was the victorious 
soul, the true servant of God. As Browning wrote in 
his old age, he, too, might have said that he was — 



SENATOR HOAR 203 

" One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward, 
Never doubted clouds would break, 
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would 
triumph. 
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, 
Sleep to wake." 

He had an unusually fortunate and happy life. 
He was fortunate in the knowledge of great work 
done, happy in never knowing idleness or the distress 
of wondering painfully how to pass away the short 
time allowed to us here, or the miserable craving for 
constant excitement so marked at the present mo- 
ment. His vacations were filled, as were his work- 
ing hours. He travelled wisely and well, and the Old 
World spoke to him as she does to those only who 
know her history. He was a lover of nature. He 
rejoiced in the beauties of hill and stream and for- 
est, of sea and sky, and delighted to watch the flight 
of the eagle or listen to the note of the song-birds, 
in whose name he wrote the charming petition 
which brought them the protection of the law in 
Massachusetts. 

He was a scholar in the wide, generous, unspecial- 
ized sense of an older and more leisurely age than 
this. His Greek and Latin went with him through 
life, and the great poets and dramatists and historians 
of antiquity were his familiar friends. His knowl- 
edge of English literature was extraordinary, — as 
extensive as it was minute and curious. His books 



204 SENATOR HOAR 

were his companions, an unfailing resource, a pleas- 
ure never exhausted. To him history had unrolled 
her ample page, and as antiquarian and collector 
he had all the joys which come from research and 
from the gradual acquisition of those treasures which 
appeal to the literary, the historic, or the artistic sense. 
Any man of well-balanced mind who is wedded 
to high ideals is sure to possess a great loyalty of 
soul. It is from such men that martyrs have been 
made, — the true martyrs whose blood has been the 
seed of churches and across whose fallen bodies great 
causes have marched to triumph. But it is also 
from men of this stamp, whose minds are warped, 
that the fanatics, the unreasoning and mischievous 
extremists likewise come, those who at best only 
ring an alarm bell, and who usually are thoroughly 
harmful, not only to the especial cause they cham- 
pion, but to all other good causes, which they en- 
tirely overlook. There is, therefore, no slight peril 
in the temperament of the thorough-going idealist, 
unless it is balanced and controlled, as it was with 
Mr. Hoar, by sound sense and by an appreciation 
of the relation which the idealist and his ideals bear 
to the universe at large. It was said of a brilliant 
contemporary of Mr. Hoar, like him an idealist, that 
" if he had lived in the Middle Ages, he would have 
gone to the stake for a principle under a misappre- 
hension as to the facts." Mr. Hoar would have gone 



SENATOR HOAR 205 

to the stake socially, politically, and physically rather 
than yield certain profound beliefs. But if he had 
made this last great sacrifice, he would have known 
just what he was doing, and would have been under 
no misapprehension as to the facts. 

Loyalty to his ideals, moreover, was not his only 
loyalty. He was by nature a partisan ; he could not 
hold faiths or take sides lightly or indifferently. He 
loved the great party he had helped to found in that 
strongest of all ways, with an open-eyed and not 
a blind affection. He more than once differed from 
his party; he sometimes opposed it on particular 
measures ; he once, at least, parted with it on a 
great national issue ; but he never would leave it ; 
he never faltered in its support. He believed that 
two great parties were essential bulwarks of responsi- 
ble representative government. He felt that a man 
could do far more and far better by remaining in his 
party, even if he thought it wrong in some one par- 
ticular, than by going outside and becoming a mere 
snarling critic. No man respected and cherished 
genuine independence more than he, and no man 
more heartily despised those who gave to hatred, 
malice, and all uncharitableness the honored name 
of independence. Nothing could tear him from the 
great organization he had helped and labored to 
build up. If any one had ever tried to drive him out, 
he would have spoken to Republicans as Webster 



206 SENATOR HOAR 

did to the Whigs in 1842 at Faneuil Hall, when 
he said : 

" I am a Whig ; I always have been a Whig, and I always 
will be one ; and if there are any who would turn me out 
of the pale of that communion, let them see who will get 
out first." 

Mr. Hoar's high ideals and unswerving loyalty 
were not confined to public life and public duty. 
He was not of those who raise lofty standards in the 
eyes of the world and then lower and forget them 
in the privacy of domestic life and in the beaten way 
of friendship. He was brought up in days when 
"plain living and high thinking" was not the mere 
phrase which it has since become, but a real belief, 
and to that belief he always adhered. He cast away 
a large income and all hope of wealth for the sake 
of the public service. He had no faculty for saving 
money and no desire to attempt it. If he made 
a large fee in an occasional case, if his pen brought 
him a handsome reward, it all went in books or 
pictures, in the hospitality he loved to exercise, and 
in the most private charities, always far beyond his 
means. He once said that he had been more than 
thirty years in public life and all he had accumulated 
was a few books. But there was no bitterness, no 
repining in the words. He respected riches wisely 
used for the public good, but he was as free from 
vulgar admiration as he was from the equally vulgar 



SENATOR HOAR 207 

hatred of wealth. He was, in a word, simply in- 
different to the possession of money — a fine attitude, 
never more worthy of consideration and respect than 
in these very days. 

His love for his native land was an intense and 
mastering emotion. His country rose before his 
imagmation like some goddess of the infant world, 
the light of hope shining in her luminous eyes, a 
sweet smile upon her lips, the sword of justice in 
her fearless hand, her broad shield stretched out to 
shelter the desolate and oppressed. Before that gra- 
cious vision he bowed his head in homage. His 
family and friends — Massachusetts, Concord, Har- 
vard College, Worcester — he loved and served them 
all with a passion of affection in which there was 
no shadow of turning. His pride in the Senate, in 
its history and its power, and his affection for it 
were only excelled by his jealous care for its dignity 
and its prerogatives. He might at times criticise 
its actions, but he would permit no one else to do 
so or to reflect in his presence upon what he regarded 
as the greatest legislative body ever devised by man, 
wherein the ambassadors of sovereign States met 
together to guard and to advance the fortunes of 
the republic. Beneath a manner sometimes cold, 
sometimes absent-minded, often indifferent, beat one 
of the tenderest hearts in the world. He had known 
many men in his day — all the great public men, 



208 SENATOR HOAR 

all the men of science, of letters, or of art — and his 
judgments upon them were just and generous, yet 
at the same time shrewd, keen, and by no means 
over-lenient. But when he had once taken a man 
within the circle of his affections he idealized him 
immediately ; there was thenceforth no fleck or spot 
upon him, and he would describe him in glow- 
ing phrases which depicted a being whom the world 
perhaps did not know or could not recognize. It 
was easy to smile at some of his estimates of those 
who were dear to him, but we can only bow in reve- 
rence before the love and loyalty which inspired the 
thought — for these are beautiful qualities which can 
never go out of fashion. 

He was a fearless and ready fighter ; he struck hard 
and did not flinch from the return. His tongue could 
utter bitter words, which fell like a whip and left a scar 
behind, but he cherished no resentments, he nursed 
no grudges. As the shadows lengthened he softened, 
and grew ever gentler and more tolerant. The caustic 
wit gave place more and more to the kindly humor 
which was one of his greatest attributes. In the 
latter days he would fain have been at peace with 
all men, and he sought only for that which was good 
in every one about him. He died in the fulness of 
years, with his affections unchilled, his fine intellect 
undimmed. He met death with the calm courage 
with which he had faced the trials of life. 



SENATOR HOAR 209 

" He took liis shrivelled hand without resistance, 
And found him smiling as his step drew near." 

So he passed from among us, a man of noble 
character and high abilities. He did a great work ; 
he lived to the full the life of his time. He was 
a great Senator — a great public servant laboring 
to aid his fellow-men and to uplift humanity. 

" He has fought a good fight, he has finished his course, 
he has kept the faith." 

May we not say of him, in the words of one of the 
poets who inspired his imagination, in the noble 
language he so dearly loved : 

Kotvov ToS' a^os Tracrt TroAtrats 

HX^6V deATTTW^. 

IIoXAtov 8aKpvu}v earat ttituXos 
Tojv yap [xeydXwv d^toTrev^eis 
^rjfj.aL fiaWov Kare^^ovcrtv. 

On all this folk, both low and high, 

A grief has fallen beyond men's fears. 

There cometh a throbbing of many tears, 

A sound as of waters falling ; 

For when great men die, 

A mighty name and a bitter cry 

Rise up from a nation calling. 

Note. — This English version of the last chorus in the Hippolytus 
of Euripides is taken from the remarkable and very beautiful transla- 
tion of that tragedy by Professor Murray. 



14 



AMERICAN HISTORY 1 

A LITTLE more than thirty years ago a boy 
could enter Harvard College and after four years 
of study graduate with the highest honors without 
knowing of the existence of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence or when the Constitution of the United 
States was framed. And what was true of Harvard 
was true of other universities and colleges. Ameri- 
can history, although sometimes imperfectly taught, 
was not included in the scheme of the higher educa- 
tion. Boys entering college were required to know 
something of the " glory that was Greece and the 
grandeur that was Rome," but they were permitted 
to remain in complete ignorance of all that related 
to the history of their own country. During the 
four years of the college course they had opportunity 
to study the history of England and Europe, but 
never to learn aught of the United States. This 
condition of education, which seems so melancholy 
now, was really the result of a general attitude of 
mind which was even then passing away, but which 
had once been predominant. The usual opinion dur- 

^ I am indebted to the kindness of the editor and publishers of the 
Reader Magazine for permission to reprint this article here. 



AMERICAN HISTORY 211 

ing the first half of the nmeteenth century seems 
to have been that there was no American history 
worth telling, apart from the adventures of the 
earliest settlers, and the events of the Revolution, 
which were both connected so closely with the history 
of Europe that they might fairly be deemed of some 
importance. Among the most highly educated por- 
tion of the community, the ignorance was, compara- 
tively speaking, densest, and for the very obvious 
reason that the history of democracy, a new thing 
then in the world, was entirely different in its attri- 
butes and conditions from the history with which 
everybody had been familiar for many centuries. 
To conceive of a history destitute of kings and nobles 
and traditions, unillumined by the splendor of a 
court, without those particular lights and shades 
which the contrast of ranks alone can give, was very 
difficult, because it involved a new idea. Time is 
always required to enable people to grasp the propo- 
sition that because a thing is different from that to 
which they have been accustomed it is not necessarily 
inferior. Habit and prescription, although in their 
very nature never fully realized nor perfectly under- 
stood, are forces of enormous power among men and 
nations. 

American history had also to contend with femi- 
nine indifference, and women influence largely the 
success of historic writings, as they do that of other 



212 AMERICAN HISTORY 

books. Macaulay knew precisely the test of popu- 
larity and wide circulation when he said that he 
wanted his history to take the place of the novel 
on every young lady's table. To suppose, therefore, 
that women would easily or at once take interest 
in the seemingly stern, gray story of State building 
and war, of law-making and constitutions, stripped, 
as it was in America, of all the glitter and romance 
and refinement which clung about the history of 
monarchies and empires to which they had always 
been accustomed, would have been to expect too 
much. " Fishers and choppers and ploughmen " 
constituting a State in Emerson's stirring verse, were 
very fine, but they seemed unlikely to have a history 
as interesting or to leave memoirs as entertaining as 
those of the Courts of St. James and Versailles, which 
educated Americans were wont to read. The truth 
was that the higher education to which I have al- 
luded was defective in regard to the history of the 
United States simply because that history during 
the first half of the nineteenth century had neither 
audience nor demand either at home or abroad. 
Here and there a state historical society or local 
antiquarians or the descendants of some of the great 
men who fought the Revolution and made the Con- 
stitution collected material, gathered traditions, or 
edited letters and memoirs, but these efforts were 
commonly regarded as amiable idiosyncracies, quite 



AMERICAN HISTORY 213 

harmless but not designed for general use. Nothing 
indeed illustrates better this attitude of mind toward 
American history at that time than the fact that 
Prescott and Motley devoted their brilliant talents 
to Spain and Holland at a period which had no con- 
nection, or at best a very slight one, with the vast 
region which was one day to be the United States. 
The truth was that educated people did not think, 
as a rule, that the United States had any history 
worth considering, just as they likewise thought that, 
while we undoubtedly had public men, they were not 
to be seriously considered as statesmen in the sense 
of European Ministers or English Parliamentary 
leaders. They were unable to realize that the organ- 
ization of a nation and the development of a new 
country by a great democracy demanded power, 
ability, and statesmanship of a very high and strong 
variety. It was all different, it was new, and it was 
not therefore really important, tried by the fashions 
and the standards of the Old World. The colonial 
habit of mind died hard in regard to American 
history, as it did in many other ways. 

Yet even then there were a few men who saw 
what a field was open to the historian in the story 
of the United States and of the colonies out of which 
the United States had been developed. Richard 
Hildreth, working only on public documents, news- 
papers, printed books, pamphlets and Congressional 



214 AMERICAN HISTORY 

debates, produced his history of the United States 
from the earliest settlements down to his own time. 
The volumes are dry, without literary quality or 
charm, almost unreadable indeed as literature, and 
yet Hildreth's work, considering his material, is very 
accurate and remains as a comprehensive book of 
reference more valuable than many which have suc- 
ceeded it. Mr. Bancroft attained to much wider 
success and to greater fame. He had the advantage 
of an unoccupied field to cultivate and a smaller and 
less hurried world to appeal to than is the case to-day 
and so his labors achieved a success impossible now 
to much better work. He brought to his task the 
best education and training which the universities 
of the United States and of Germany could afford, 
a keen mind, vigorous abilities, an intense love of 
country and an unwearied industry. His history 
is diffuse ; there is an inordinate space given to the 
affairs of contemporary Europe, and in the earliest 
edition there was much turgid writing in praise of 
the principles of democracy and the rights of man, 
as expounded by Rousseau and Jefferson. But Mr. 
Bancroft rendered, nevertheless, an incalculable ser- 
vice to American history by the vast mass of original 
matter which he brought to light and use and by the 
manner in which he gave unity and co-ordination 
to the history of the colonies. So wide indeed were 
his researches and so extensive was his material that 



AMERICAN HISTORY 215 

even his long and industrious life did not enable him 
to get beyond the period of the Confederation. To 
the same time we owe Mr. Palfrey's history of New 
England, a work of the highest and most admirable 
scholarship, of the best type of historical work, but 
somewhat dry in narration and necessarily covering 
only one group of the colonies which in the future 
were to form United States. 

In Francis Parkman, of a later generation than 
Bancroft or Palfrey, American literature found its 
first really great historian, one fairly entitled to a 
place in the small group from which Thucydides, 
Tacitus, and Gibbon stand forth as the pre-eminent 
and hitherto unrivalled exemplars. Mr. Parkman 
not only had untiring industry and the capacity for 
sifting evidence and marshalling facts, drawn in many 
cases from the dark corners of forgotten manuscripts, 
but he possessed also the power of compression, the 
reserved but vigorous style, and above all the imagi- 
nation, which enabled him to make history live and 
have a meaning, without which life and meaning it 
will surely die and be buried among incoherent annals 
and scientific catalogues of facts. In a series of vol- 
umes he gradually drew a noble picture of the mighty 
struggle of races, which ended in giving North 
America to the English-speaking people. The drama 
spread over a continent, the actors who flitted across 
the vast stage were Indians and Jesuits, courtiers of 



216 AMERICAN HISTORY 

Louis XIV, and sober Puritans of New England, 
French adventurers and sturdy Dutch traders from 
the Mohawk and the Hudson, all with the wilderness 
as a background and a future beyond imagination as 
the prize for which they blindly strove. Parkman 
made the world comprehend not only that American 
history was important, but that if it did not have 
the precise kind of picturesqueness to which that of 
Europe had accustomed us, it had a picturesqueness 
of its own, a light and color and a dramatic force not 
less impressive because they differed in kind from 
what had gone before. 

Parkman began his work under the old conditions 
of indifference and inattention. When he brought 
his brilliant volumes to an end those conditions had 
entirely changed. The strong department of Ameri- 
can History which has grown up at Cambridge in 
the last thirty years of the century is merely a sign 
of the complete alteration in opinion and feeling 
which had taken place not only in the universi- 
ties and in the schools, but in the public mind after 
the close of the Civil War. Nothing in our earlier 
days, for example, showed more conclusively the 
national indifference to the past than the reckless 
destruction of landmarks and historic buildings. Now 
every effort is made to preserve all that remains 
which gives to past events a local habitation. Amer- 
icans have learned, too late unfortunately in many 



AMERICAN HISTORY 217 

instances, that the fields and the woods, the buildings 
and the streets, which have been the scenes of mem- 
orable events, have not only inestimable worth his- 
torically and sentimentally, but that they are also 
pecuniarily valuable, to take a very practical view, to 
any community lucky enough to possess them. 

In the same way books ranging from the most ex- 
tensive histories to antiquarian monographs, rich in 
minute learning upon some single incident, have mul- 
tiplied almost beyond belief. Biographies, compila- 
tions of essays by specialists, general histories and 
manuals of all sorts have been duplicated and re- 
duplicated until we seem in danger almost of losing 
sight of the city on account of the number of houses 
which cut off our view. The whole of our history, 
from the first voyage of Columbus to the last admin- 
istration at Washington, has been examined and 
written about in some fashion. In the old days the 
period between the landings at Plymouth and James- 
town and the Declaration of Independence, and that 
which stretched forward from the surrender at York- 
town might have been labelled, like portions of the 
maps so familiar a generation ago, the '• Great Ameri- 
can Desert." And people dwelt contented with their 
" Desert " and their ignorance. But the settlements 
have spread, and as they spread have subdued and 
conquered. " The Great American Desert " is no 
more ; irrigation threatens its last stronghold, and 



218 AMERICAN HISTORY 

the unopened tracts of the history of the United States 
have all been roamed over and explored. Most of 
the exploration and examination has resulted merely 
in what is so dear to the purely scientific historian, 
vast masses of catalogued facts where literature is 
excluded, and one fact is just as good and important 
as any other, simply because it is a fact. These 
heaps of information, some of it valueless, much of it 
undigested, still only partly assorted, are the neces- 
sary conditions for real history written by one capable 
and understanding man, endowed with the historic 
imagination as distinct from the huge aggregations 
of special articles, immensely valuable as books of 
reference, but having the same relation to history in 
its highest sense that the English dictionary bears to 
the plays of Shakespeare or the verse of Milton. Out 
of this mass of material thus fervently and indiscrim- 
inately collected in the last forty years have come two 
histories of the highest type in scholarship, research, 
and original thought, — Mr. Henry Adams's " History 
of the United States During the Administrations of 
Jefferson and Madison," and that of Mr. Rhodes cov- 
ering the period subsequent to the Compromise of 
1850. In addition to these we have many excel- 
lent biographies and monographs, as well as some 
admirable presentations and brilliant pictures of cer- 
tain epochs and movements like those of Mr. Fiske 
and Mr. McMaster, which are read by every one and 



AMERICAN HISTORY 219 

which are even more necessary than the highly scien- 
tific catalogues, stripped according to rule of all 
beauty of style and all human interest, and which are 
read by no one. To have brought so much pure gold 
as this out of the incalculable mass of " huddling 
silver little worth " is highly creditable to American 
letters and American history. It is an excellent record, 
not bettered elsewhere in the same period either in 
form or in the net contribution to human knowledge, 
and to the comprehension of the meaning of man 
upon earth. 

Historians and learned societies, antiquarians, and 
biographers, however, cannot make history unless the 
material for it exists, nor can they by their efforts 
alone develop from nothing a real interest in it among 
the people at large. The popular feeling which 
creates the interest and manifests itself, not merely 
in the sale of histories and biographies, but by the 
enthusiasm shown in the celebration of local anni- 
versaries, in numberless addresses, usually forgotten 
at once, except in the town or village commemorated, 
in the passion for genealogies and family histories, 
in the preservation and erection of monuments, 
springs from causes deep down among the people 
themselves. This activity and this earnestness in all 
things pertaining to the past are sound and whole- 
some, and also full of meaning. It is a commonplace 
to say that a people which cares nothing for its past 



220 AMERICAN HISTORY 

has no present and deserves no future. But it is not 
quite so obvious that widespread interest in history 
is the proof of national consciousness and of the abid- 
ing sense that a nation has come to its place in the 
world. 

While we looked to Europe for all our inspiration 
in art and letters, in thought and in politics, it was 
not to be expected that we should consider our own 
doings of much consequence or worthy of a serious 
place in history. Nor were those doings in them- 
selves of much importance, for colonies are mere 
appendages, and what chiefly concerns mankind is 
the tree, not the dependent shoots which push up 
from spreading roots. The history of the American 
colonies intrinsically was not very important nor, 
apart from a certain air of adventure and rude pic- 
turesqueness, very generally interesting. But when 
the colonies became an independent State the case 
altered at once. It became important to know and 
understand the origin and the past of the new nation 
in all its details. The ways of life, the habits and 
customs of the tribes which wandered in the forests 
of Scandinavia and Germany are not in themselves 
very valuable, and are certainly not entertaining. 
But research exhausts itself, and wisely, too, in the 
effort to find the minutest facts which shall throw 
light upon the origin and history of the people from 
whom have come not only the dominant races of 



AMERICAN HISTORY 221 

Western Europe, but the Western civilization which 
has crossed oceans and subjugated continents. To 
take a concrete example, the island of Jamaica, now 
and always a dependent colony, is historically negli- 
gible, but the little State of Rhode Island deserves the 
careful attention of the historian because of her part 
and influence in founding, making, and guiding a 
nation. 

Many years, however, passed before we emerged 
wholly from the colonial condition. Long after we 
had become independent politically, the old colonial 
habits of thought, as strong as they were impalpable, 
clung fast about us. Only step by step did we shake 
off the provincial spirit and rid ourselves of the bated 
breath of the colonists. We did not come to a full 
national consciousness until we had passed through 
the awful trial of the Civil War. Then we realized 
what we were, and the trembling deference to foreign 
opinion, the sensitive outcry against foreign criticism, 
as well as the uneasy self-assertion and bragging 
which accompanied them, fell from us as the burden 
fell from the shoulders of Christian. There was still 
much to do, but the old colonial habit of mind was 
shattered beyond recovery. It lingered on here and 
there, it dies hard, but it is dying, and now is nearly 
dead. 

With the coming of a true national consciousness 
came the interest in the past and in history. It was 



222 AMERICAN HISTORY 

apparent that the United States was one of the most 
considerable facts of the age, when its consohdation 
had once been effected and all peril of dissolution had 
departed with the crushing out of the forces which 
aimed at separation. Anything which helped to ex- 
plain this fact became, therefore, of intense interest. 
As the years passed on, the fact grew larger. In due 
time a not very serious war revealed to the world 
what had happened, and it appeared that the fact 
known as the United States had, and was destined to 
have in many various ways, a strong and increasing 
influence upon all the other facts known as the nations 
of the earth. Thus did it become more than ever 
obvious that the explanation of the United States to 
be found in the history of the past four centuries was 
worthy of the best efforts of the historian. The pride 
in what the country is spurs men on to pride in all 
who shared in making the nation. From the abor- 
tive attempts of the earliest adventurers, from the 
feeble settlements clinging to the Atlantic seaboard, 
on through the confused and seemingly petty history 
of the colonies, and of the scattered people and small 
States struggling out of revolution and dissension to a 
larger national life, to those who saved the Union 
from disintegration, and still on to those who have 
carried her power forward to the Pacific, and made a 
great nation where there was none before, — all alike 
have come to possess deep meaning and importance. 



AMERICAN HISTORY 223 

Hence the rise of American history, and, what is 
more important, of the general interest in that his- 
tory, which may be trusted to separate the wheat 
from the chaff, and give ns not only knowledge, but 
also something worthy to take a place in literature 
by the manner in which the knowledge is communi- 
cated to men. 

Nearly thirty years ago one of the greatest writers 
of the nineteenth century said, " Le monde est entraine 
par un penchant irresistible vers 1' Americanisme, vers 
le regne de ce que tous comprennent et apprecient." * 
But that which the penetrating intellect of Renan 
detected so soon after our Civil War, the influence 
the United States was destined to have upon the rest 
of the world, was not perceived by ordinary observers. 
Whether Renan was right or wrong about the nature 
of the influence is not important. The point is that 
he saw it coming and called attention to what others 
were for many years wholly unable to see or even 
to imagine. Now, however, signs are not wanting 
that the inhabitants of England and Europe are be- 
ginning to think that the history of a people who have 
made a great and powerful nation, to whom the future 
in large measure belongs, is worthy of consideration, 
and that it may not be amiss to know something of 
the men who have led and guided that people in the 

1 Preface to "Melanges d'histoire et de voyages," par Ernest 
Renan. Paris. 1878. 



224 AMERICAN HISTORY 

past, and who lead and guide them now. There is 
evident, even on the other side of the Atlantic, a 
dawning idea that this knowledge may be perhaps 
as useful and even as illuminating as to trace the 
fortunes of some petty and wholly effaced Italian city 
despot or the personal intrigues of forgotten courtiers. 
It has been a great and interesting change. There 
is no longer danger that the history of the United 
States will be neglected. We are much more likely 
to suffer from too much zeal and from useless accu- 
mulations and needless repetitions. But as Webster 
said that in his profession he always found there was 
plenty of room at the top, so is there still ample 
opportunity, in many periods and phases of American 
history yet untouched, for the rare historian who, in 
the largest and finest sense, can write history which 
shall rest upon learning and also become a part of 
the literature of mankind. 



CERTAIN PRINCIPLES OF TOWN 
GOVERNMENT ' 

" Great nations," says Ruskin in the preface to 
"St. Mark's Rest," "write their autobiographies in 
three manuscripts, — the book of their deeds, the book 
of their words, and the book of their art." We of the 
United States have only just begun to write a little 
in the third of these volumes, but we may console 
ourselves thereon with two reflections : first, that 
States ripen long and slowly (it took Venice seven 
hundred years) before they develope a beautiful and 
original art ; and secondly, that we have already here 
and there a building like the Capitol at Washington 
which will serve to tell our posterity that the noble 
and permanent in architecture was at least known 
among us in our first century of national existence. 

In the second volume, the book of words, much 
more has been written. The total gift may not yet 
be large, but we have made a real addition to the lit- 
erature of the English-speaking peoples and we can 
show three or four shining names which are fixed 
stars in the literature of the world. Still we cannot 

1 An address delivered at the celebration of the two hundredth anni- 
versary of the establishment of the Town of Brookline, Massachusetts. 

16 



226 CERTAIN PRINCIPLES OF TOWN GOVERNMENT 

as yet read long in our second volume. Letters, like 
art, take much time for full development ; even more 
time is needed to obtain the richness and variety so 
necessary to a really great literature, which cannot, 
like a man, be satisfied, still less complete, with only 
a " single book." And so we come back to Ruskin's 
first volume, that which all nations must write and 
write well before they can hope to bring forth either 
a literature or an art which shall be at once their 
own and also worthy of the world's considerate ad- 
miration. Our autobiography as written in our book 
of deeds reaches back over only three hundred years, 
but, nevertheless, many pages have been filled be- 
cause the deeds have been many and of grave import 
to mankind, as we and the rest of the world are just 
beginning rightly to understand. 

Among the deeds of serious meaning and result so 
inscribed in the indelible past, that of founding and 
organizing these New England towns in the forest 
clearing or by the sounding sea was one of the most 
considerable, a fact growing daily more evident to 
those who turn from the roar of the torrent of Ameri- 
can life to seek in the stillness of the days that are 
dead the sources of the mighty stream. These re- 
curring celebrations exhibit not only the proper pride 
in home and birthplace which all men should possess, 
but also show by their very multiplication a wide- 
spread feeling that the New England town deserves 



CERTAIN PRINCIPLES OF TOWN GOVERNMENT 227 

attention as an example of a system which has had a 
profound effect on the history, the government, and 
the political thoughts and habits of the people of the 
United States. This due attention may be rendered 
in two ways ; either by setting forth in scrupulous de- 
tail the history of each town, or through the consider- 
ation of the features which are common to all the 
towns alike and therefore part of the general devel- 
opment of the State and country. Both are important, 
for it is a serious mistake to make light of local his- 
tory because it moves in a restricted field and of ne- 
cessity deals with small things. The value of local 
history depends upon the way in which it is re- 
garded and upon the results which flowed from it. 
Montaigne says that one secret of happiness is to in- 
terest one's self in the life about one and that to the 
philosopher a village fulfils this purpose as well as a 
capital city, because the great book of human nature 
lies open alike in both. The real test, however, is in 
the results. Events intrinsically unimportant assume 
a vast significance if they mark the beginnings of 
empires. The brawls and quarrels of two aborigi- 
nal tribes planted, let us imagine, upon Corey's Hill 
and upon the opposite slope where the Aspinwall 
house stood would be devoid of any human interest 
now because the Indians founded and developed 
nothing. But if you will shift the scene to another 
country, call the two hills Palatine and Quirinal, and 



228 CERTAIN PRINCIPLES OF TOWN GOVERNMENT 

the aboriginal tribes who occupied them Romans and 
Sabines, then the brawls and fights assume an intense 
interest. The little valley for which they contended 
in those dim, forgotten days became the Roman 
Forum, the spring around which they fought was the 
Fountain of Juturna, where the great twin brethren 
watered their horses after the battle of Lake Regillus, 
and the agreement which the fighting tribes then 
reached was the foundation of the empire of Rome. 
Around those obscure events and misty figures tradi- 
tion has gathered thickly. They have formed the 
theme of the poet, the painter, and the sculptor in all 
the generations since. Tlie learning of the world has 
sought out everything which could throw light upon 
that dim region of history while archoeology laying 
bare forgotten ruins sunk deep in earth has labored 
patiently to reconstruct that vanished time, and has 
proved in these later days the reality of men and 
events which earlier students had relegated to the 
domain of myth and fable. Those events remain as 
inherently insignificant in themselves as they were in 
the beginning, but that which came from them gives 
them a meaning and an interest beyond comparison. 
So is it here. The history of the towns and counties 
of Massachusetts and Virginia and of all the colonies 
which fringed the Atlantic sea-board seems trifling 
enough unless we lift our eyes and look out from it 
at the United States to-day. Then this story of the 



CERTAIN PRINCIPLES OF TOWN GOVERNMENT 229 

days of small things takes on an importance which 
may well give us pause and which bids us search for 
the deeper meanings it contains. You may find 
those meanings here as in our other New England 
towns, for there is a great similarity in the history, 
the character, and the ruling principles of them all. 
The same spirit inspired every one of them in the 
early days. Here as elsewhere the space of ground 
upon which the town stands becomes visible to history, 
and detaches itself from the rest of the earth by the 
appearance of the Indians in the white man's records. 
^' Ten Sagamores and many Indians" are mentioned 
in connection with this spot in 1633. Their dark 
figures show out for a moment against the background 
of hills and forests and then vanish, precursors of the 
fate of their race throughout a continent. Then we 
hear of a little hamlet by the Muddy River attached 
to the jurisdiction of Boston, where in 1686 the 
strong love of local self-government made itself felt 
and a degree of independence was obtained. Then 
the village returns to Boston and at last in 1705 the 
spirit of independence prevails, and the town is estab- 
lished, giving us the anniversary which we commemo- 
rate to-day. It was the eighty-third community in 
Massachusetts which thus attained to independence 
and self-government in 1705, "a poor little town" 
as it described itself in 1714, when it could not pay 
for a representative in the Great and General Court 



230 CERTAIN PRINCIPLES OF TOWN GOVERNMENT 

because it had just built a church. But the right 
qualities were all there among that handful of farm- 
ers. The " poor little town " grew and prospered. 
It did not fail when the crises came ; it took its share 
in the Revolution, in the formation of the Union 
of States, and in the great Civil War. No longer 
poor in 1860, but rich also in much better things than 
money it sent out thirty-four officers and seven hundred 
and twenty men, one hundred and thirty-five more than 
its quota, to fight for the preservation of the Union. 
Yet it still remains a towm. Long ago fitted in wealth 
and population to become a city, able too, at any mo- 
ment, to become an integral and important part of the 
great capital to which it had been attached in its days of 
infancy, Brookline still chooses to remain a town and 
to cling to town government. This unusual fact 
very forcibly suggests that nothing could be more 
meet on this day than to consider carefully what 
some at least of those principles and meanings of 
town governments are to which Brookline has so 
long been loyal. 

I shall venture to follow the path to which Brook- 
line's preference for the town system in this age of 
multiplying cities invites me, and I do it the more 
willingly because it is not for me to trace now the 
history of the town or try to draw a picture of its 
past and its people. That must be the work of some 
one who is to the manner born, even if time and 



CERTAIN PRINCIPLES OF TOWN GOVERNMENT 231 

space did not alike forbid me to attempt it. To him 
who speaks here briefly on this day of commemora- 
tion it is only permitted to glance at the larger as- 
pects of the subject, at those which are typical in the 
past and which if understood aright should contain 
lessons for the present. Here we ought surely to 
find something which will help us to comprehend the 
great country which we have built up from these lit- 
tle coast settlements obscurely begun nearly three 
centuries ago. I say, "help us to understand our 
country," for without a right understanding of facts 
we cannot have veracity of mind or look facts in the 
face, and without veracity of mind and a clear-eyed 
vision of the facts about us no success, certainly no 
success worth having is even remotely possible. 

We brought to this new world and planted here 
the habits and traditions of an old civilization; but 
a transplanted civilization in a virgin soil is neces- 
sarily very different from the same civilization in the 
regions where it was born and then developed in the 
slow process of the centuries. Much that it had in 
the old world was inevitably lost in the new. Much 
also in crossing the ocean suffered a sea change and 
took on new forms when it was once rooted and 
began to grow and flourish in a slowly conquered 
wilderness. The trouble with most of the criticism 
and with much else that has been written about 
the United States both at home and abroad is that 



232 CERTAIN PRINCIPLES OF TOWN GOVERNMENT 

it has been devoted to telling us what we have lost 
by our migration and what is wanting here as com- 
pared with Europe, instead of considering what we 
have, what we are, and what we should strive and 
hope to be. Such a method of criticism or of obser- 
vation is inept as well as negative. To say that 
a newly transplanted civilization is in some respects 
crude or to point out, as I saw done recently, that 
New Hampshire lacks the picturesqueness conveyed 
by the presence of parsons and squires, leads nowhere, 
reiterates truisms, and teaches absolutely nothing. 
It is impossible to proceed by negations in describing 
a great nation, in discussing its history or in seeking 
to explain its meaning. Moreover, whether a given 
individual likes or dislikes the country and its people 
is a matter of personal taste, and of no possible con- 
sequence except to the individual himself. The United 
States is a great fact in the world to-day, replete with 
force and pregnant with vast possibilities. What does 
it mean, socially and politically, economically and 
artistically, this great nation of ours, ever becoming 
more powerful and influential ? What does it all 
portend ? Whither are we going ; along what roads 
should we travel, and what guides should we follow ? 
What are the perils to be shunned, what the aspira- 
tions which we should strive to fulfil ? These ques- 
tions, which go to the very root of the matter, cannot 
be answered by saying very wisely that we have no 



CERTAIN PRINCIPLES OF TOWN GOVERNMENT 233 

castles or no parsons or no squires, any more than we 
can regulate life in the tropics or make it practicable 
by merely declaring that the tropics, obviously ill 
arranged, have unfortunately neither snow nor frost. 
That which is needed is patient examination of what 
exists and careful study of the past from which the 
present has come. In my opinion much may be learned 
from the history of our New England towns which 
will help us to understand and thereby aid us to 
succeed in the conduct of this great nation, in whose 
upbuilding these towns have been a potent factor. 
The New England town as established here in the 
seventeenth century was a reversion to social, politi- 
cal, and economic forms which our remote ancestors 
brought out from the German forests and which had 
been gradually lost through feudalism, through the 
rise of the trade guilds in the towns, and through the 
later development of despotic monarchies in Europe 
and in a less degree in England. We find here the 
town-meeting, the common land, the woodland, the 
right of pasture, exact reproductions of the mark- 
land, the ploughland, and the moot of the Saxon 
tun or hundred. It seems almost as if the mere 
presence of the American wilderness caused these 
exiled English to revive unconsciously the habits of 
their remote forefathers in the German forests. But 
this New England plan of local government by the 
direct voice of the people gathered in public meeting 



234 CERTAIN PRINCIPLES OF TOWN GOVERNMENT 

can claim kinship with systems much older than 
any which their Teutonic ancestry is able to furnish. 
The town-meeting is closely akin to the comitia 
of Rome and to the Grecian agora, Rome started 
with a government by the direct voice of the citizens, 
and such was also the theory and practice of Athens. 
Greece planted her colonies in every island and along 
all the coasts of the Mediterranean, but they remained 
isolated and separate, they never could really unite, 
and even the conquests and the genius of Alexander 
the Great failed to consolidate and establish a Gre- 
cian Empire. Rome, on the other hand, cemented 
and built up her empire, but her direct government 
by the people and then her republican forms were 
gradually sacrificed and finally perished in the pro- 
cess. Coming to a later period we find that the town 
governments of the Middle Ages sank in Italy into 
the possession of small native and large foreign 
tyrants, while in the North of Europe the direct 
control of the citizens was replaced by that of guilds 
in the larger, and by feudal lords in the smaller 
towns. The English-speaking people not only re- 
vived direct government by popular meetings here 
in America, but they preserved local self-government 
everywhere, saving themselves at the same time from 
Greek disintegration on the one hand and from the 
centralized tyranny of Rome on the other. This 
they accomplished by the application of the principle 



CERTAIN PRINCIPLES OF TOWN GOVERNMENT 235 

of representation, and by this invention or application 
it has been possible to build up the United States 
and the British Empire which combine the control 
of vast areas and great populations with personal 
freedom and local self-government. The town-meet- 
ing is profoundly interesting not simply as represent- 
ing the ancient rule of the popular assembly, nor 
chiefly because in American hands it has proved the 
best system of local self-government ever devised. 
Its deepest significance lies in the fact that out of 
these towns and out of our self-governing communi- 
ties everywhere we have been able to construct a 
solid fabric of State and nation. This has been 
accomplished politically speaking through the prin- 
ciple of representation. Here in New England the 
towns as such received representation in the General 
Court, and their union made the colony. Thence we 
proceeded to the union of the Puritan colonies in the 
New England confederation of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, which, although it did not endure, set the 
example for the union of all the colonies, which in 
turn developed first into the Confederation, and then 
into the great Union of the States. It is in New 
England and through such towns as this that the 
possibility of forming governments on a large scale 
composed of the representatives of self-governing 
local communities was first demonstrated, and the 
Senate of the United States, representing the States 



236 CERTAIN PRINCIPLES OF TOWN GOVERNMENT 

themselves, is the lasting embodiment of this principle 
in our national system. The towns of New England 
teach us, therefore, not only the value of local self- 
government, but the far higher importance of politi- 
cal union if we would have a powerful nation, and 
not a collection of jarring atoms out of which noth- 
ing great, nothing of worth could ever come. 

Yet even more serious than the combination of 
local self-government with the union of States from 
which national life springs, is the balance between 
the two principles. The complete predominance of 
local self-government means disintegration ; and its 
undue diminution, still more its extinction would 
mean centralism accompanied by despotism thinly 
veiled. It is therefore of the utmost importance 
that the balance between these two great principles 
should be accurately maintained and the equilibrium 
between the immediate popular government by the 
town-meeting and government by representation care- 
fully preserved. Local affairs belong to the local 
government, state and national policies to the gov- 
ernment by representation. The substitution of rep- 
resentative for direct government in local affairs, 
which the growth of population has made necessary, 
has not been a success, and our great cities reveal the 
evils which have resulted from the change. The loss 
of the direct popular action of the town-meeting has 
been followed by many bad results in the manage- 



CERTAIN PRINCIPLES OF TOWN GOVERNMENT 237 

ment of the business of the cities, and it is a matter 
for careful consideration whether we cannot modify, 
if we are unable wholly to cure, the evils in our great 
municipalities by a reversion in some measure to the 
direct popular action of the town-meeting, which is 
in its essence a meeting of neighbors. It seems 
as if the political divisions of cities might be made 
in such a manner as to bring again into operation, 
partially at least, the neighborhood system. 

On the other hand, the methods of the town-meet- 
ing should never be permitted to trench upon the 
representative government of State or nation. I do 
not mean by this the legislation which affects only a 
locality, a single city, or a town, and which is often 
referred to the inhabitants of such localities for ac- 
ceptance or rejection. Such laws are in their nature 
measures of local self-government, and come obviously 
and clearly within the principles of the town system. 
They are easily distinguished from other measures 
of general application to the entire people of the State, 
and it is these latter which should never be withdrawn 
from the full representative control. The essence of 
representative government is responsibility, and when 
that responsibility ceases representative government 
becomes anarchy and we are fairly on the way to 
such scenes as were enacted during the French Revo- 
lution, when the Paris mob, breaking into the As- 
sembly or the Convention, dictated the passage of 



238 CERTAIN PRINCIPLES OF TOWN GOVERNMENT 

laws. The control of the electors over the represent- 
ative is direct, and if he does not satisfy them he can 
be replaced ; but it is not to be forgotten that he repre- 
sents not merely the people of his own district, but in 
due proportion the people of the entire State. If re- 
sponsibility is taken from him by compelling him to 
vote for measures solely because they have secured a 
certain number of petitioners, or if he is at liberty 
to refer measures of all sorts to popular vote, he ceases 
to be representative and becomes a mere machine of 
record. When responsibility vanishes representative 
government is at an end, and all the safeguards of 
debate and discussion, of deliberate action, of amend- 
ment or compromise, are gone forever. Legislative 
anarchy would ensue, and we might easily find our- 
selves in a position where the mob of a single large 
city would dominate legislation, and laws would be 
thrust upon us ruinous to the State itself and to the 
best interests of the entire people of the State. No 
constitutional change or statutory arrangement should 
ever be permitted which would take from the repre- 
sentative the responsibility of final action by his own 
vote or allow him to shift that responsibility onto a 
reference to a popular vote, where amendment or mod- 
ification so essential to wise legislation is absolutely 
impossible. 

From these same town governments of New Eng- 
land which have had such success and such an influ- 



CERTAIN PRINCIPLES OF TOWN GOVERNMENT 239 

ence upon the history and political development of 
the United States another great lesson may also be 
learned, even more important than that which I have 
just suggested, by examining the limits which the 
men of the town-meeting set to the action of govern- 
ment and to the duties which government should 
undertake. 

In the beginning, and entirely in accordance with 
the belief and practice of the time, the settlers of New 
England established a state church. They carried 
this theory in the ardor of their religious zeal to its 
extremest verge, for they actually made the church 
and State one. The freeman and voter of the colony 
at the outset could be such only by being also a 
member of the church. The meeting-house was the 
church, the corner-stone of every organized town, and 
the people who governed the one controlled the other. 
The most extreme features of the system, as well as 
the rigid intolerance which it implied, were largely 
modified before the seventeenth century had closed, 
but the influence of the church on politics continued ; 
and it was not until two hundred years after the 
settlement of Plymouth that the last vestiges of the 
union of the church and State in Massachusetts were 
removed by constitutional amendment. It was a 
long struggle, and the results, which embodied a 
policy adopted from the outset by Pennsylvania and 
now universal in the United States, cannot be over- 



240 CERTAIN PRINCIPLES OF TOWN GOVERNMENT 

estimated. The State in America withdrew entirely 
from all connection with the religion of the people. 
We were the first to establish this great principle, to 
which the rest of Western civilization is coming 
slowly and with halting steps. We hardly realize 
now what a revolution we wrought, but we must 
never forget its meaning. The State meddles with 
no man's conscience, and every man is free to follow 
his own religious convictions. But let it be remem- 
bered that this noble attitude of the State is a corol- 
lary of the proposition that no church as such must 
meddle with the State, that religious ^^beliefs must be 
kept out of politics, and that no dollar of the public 
money contributed by all the people must be expended 
for the benefit of any sect including only a part of 
the people. Easy forgetfulness of this truth, any 
relaxation in the line which separates church and 
State made either by the church or State strikes at 
the very roots of our institutions, and would open the 
door to let uncounted evils rush in upon us. 

The struggle for the separation of church and State 
in the towns of New England was long and severe, 
for our people are naturally and wisely conservative. 
But in other directions the same tendencies to restrict 
the powers of the government are apparent. The 
communal features of the earliest settlements, so in- 
teresting historically, faded rapidly away only to sur- 
vive here and there as curious monuments in what 



CERTAIN PRINCIPLES OF TOWN GOVERNMENT 241 

were known as commons, rights of pasture, and the 
like. Apart from these the New England towns 
adopted with extraordinary unanimity the principle 
that the government should be as limited in its func- 
tions as was possible, and that the largest scope should 
be given to the individual man to work out his own 
fortune here and 'his own salvation hereafter. They 
believed, or came by experience to believe, that this 
was the only safe principle, whether from the stand- 
point of practical government or from that of democ- 
racy and popular sovereignty. How successful, how 
wise, how strong this doctrine has proved is shown by 
what the United States is to-day. Under this theory 
of government, this country has been built up, our 
vast prosperity attained, and all our triumphs as a 
people won. In view of the past let us beware how 
we depart from the principles, practices, and beliefs 
of our forefathers. I say this not because the sphere 
of governmental action has been inevitably enlarged 
by the growth and development of the country, but 
because it is seriously proposed to extend the sphere 
of governmental action in State, in nation, and in 
municipalities in ways which are not at all inevitable, 
but which are advocated openly for the purpose of 
destroying our old system of restricted government 
joined to large individual liberty, and replacing it 
with another and totally different arrangement. 
The system proposed is not new. It is one of the 

16 



242 CERTAIN PRINCIPLES OF TOWN GOVERNMENT 

oldest schemes for the abolition of all existing evils 
ever devised, and in one form or another has been 
tried and failed at intervals almost since the begin- 
nings of human history. The new system is really 
that which we have developed and built upon here. 
Thus far modern democracy, which since our war for 
independence and the French Revolution has been 
steadily taking possession of the world of Western 
civilization, has proceeded upon the American theory 
of the least possible interference by government and 
the largest possible individual liberty compatible with 
the rights of others. The measure of its success can 
be gauged by contrasting the United States with 
Russia, the former the most perfect exponent of the 
modern system, the latter a fairly complete example 
of the old theory embodied in what is in its essence 
a military and religious socialism where the govern- 
ment is everything and the individual nothing. The 
breakdown of the Russian system under modern eco- 
nomic conditions is going on before our eyes to-day and 
where it will end no man can say; but this is not 
what concerns us. Our interest and welfare lie in 
determining whither the movements for larger gov- 
ernmental action are tending here. That they lead 
toward the system of Russia and away from the prin- 
ciple upon which we have built up the United States 
is undoubted. But it is not easy to draw the line. 
No hard and fast rule can be laid down, and hence 



CERTAIN PRINCIPLES OF TOWN GOVERNMENT 243 

the enormous difficulty of the problem. The "let 
alone " theory, carried to its full extreme, ends in 
anarchy and in the condition of the savages of Tierra 
del Fuego. The governmental theory, carried to its 
extreme, ends in the despotism of Russia or of Rome ; 
for, call the system socialism or by any other fine 
name you please, governments are composed of men, 
and if you concentrate all powers and all business in 
government you concentrate it in the hands of the 
men who compose the government and they become 
despots, at first in fact and at last in name, and 
then the people are condemned to ignorance and pov- 
erty or beguiled by bread and games if they grow 
turbulent. Socialists and anarchists are often spoken 
of together as if they were similar. They are really 
the antipodes of each other. The socialist would 
have the government everything, the anarchist would 
destroy all government. 

Somewhere between these extremes lies the path 
of safety. It may be narrow and of uncertain bound- 
aries, but it gives a firm footing and it is on that 
ground that we have won our success and preserved 
our freedom. To us, indeed to the world at this 
period, it is all-important to understand what that 
safe ground is, to define it so far as we can. Let us 
make an attempt here to-day to find that definition in 
broad outline at least. 

There are certain things which from universal ex- 



244 CERTAIN PRINCIPLES OF TOWN GOVERNMENT 

perience and by general consent everybody agrees must 
be done by government ; that is, by the combined force 
of the community organized politically. For example, 
it is agreed by all that the army and navy must be 
organized, paid, and controlled, and peace abroad and 
order at home must be maintained by the govern- 
ment. It is also agreed that the government shall 
provide opportunities for education for all children, 
but that on the other hand it shall not build churches 
or interfere with any man's religion. We might 
go on enumerating the recognized functions of the 
government, and on the other side the fields from 
which it is excluded, but we can sum it all up by say- 
ing that the American theory has hitherto been that 
of the old New England town, to leave to individual 
effort everything possible, and use the government or 
the combined forces of the community only when it 
is absolutely necessary to do so. There can be no 
doubt that to this liberty of individual action and 
to the spirit of enterprise which it has generated are 
due the vast material success of the United States and 
an economic organization which in energy and force 
surpasses any other. The economic success of the 
various nations is in fact proportioned to the degree 
of individual liberty existing among the people. Those 
like the United States and England, where this liberty 
is largest, have been the most successful ; those where 
the paternal system is the most extreme, as in Kussia, 



CERTAIN PRINCIPLES OF TOWN GOVERNMENT 245 

have fallen behind in the race ; yet we see none the 
less at this moment a marked movement to revert to 
extreme forms of paternalism. This is due no doubt 
in large measure to the actions of the great combina- 
tions of capital which modern conditions have devel- 
oped. The belief that combinations so vast should 
not and cannot be allowed to operate unchecked and 
unwatched is not only natural, but sound and right. 
But there is a wide distinction between government 
supervision and regulation of these enormous agencies 
for the conduct of business and government owner- 
ship and operation of such agencies. The one is a 
necessity in the public interest developed by modern 
conditions ; the other is a revolution in our entire 
theory and practice of government. Government 
ownership of the railroads of this country, to take 
but a single instance, would mean in its fulfilment 
the destruction of the institutions we have known 
and loved, and under which our liberties have been 
won and preserved. You may call the system social- 
ism or anything else you choose, but when the govern- 
ment owns and controls all the business agencies, the 
men who by any means come to control the govern- 
ment are your masters and mine. We should have 
an oligarchy composed of a few office-holders, a despot 
at their head, and all below on one sordid level where 
hope had perished and ambition was dead. There is 
no reason whatever to suppose that under such con- 



246 CERTAIN PRINCIPLES OF TOWN GOVERNMENT 

ditions poverty would disappear. There is every 
reason to believe that it would be made uniform and 
universal. Poverty is a terrible evil which all right- 
minded men should labor to alleviate and to reduce, 
but it can hardly be lessened by a system which 
would destroy all wealth by removing every possible 
desire for its creation or increase. Yet even the ex- 
tinction of the worst forms of poverty, were that 
possible, would be a heavy price to pay for the de- 
struction of hope, of striving, of the effort to lift 
one's self and one's fellows a little higher which 
alone makes life worth having. If like the European 
Socialists you carry the old, old system which you 
would reimpose upon mankind to its logical extreme, 
you must seek the destruction of nationality and dis- 
pense with the love of country. In an economic age 
like our own, when adoration of money is an ever 
present peril beware how you destroy patriotism, one 
of the few great ideals left to men, for it is by faith 
and ideals alone that man has been able to rise to 
higher things. The founders of these towns, the 
statesmen who made the republic, were men of deep 
religious faith, lovers of freedom and of their fellow- 
men, ready to sacrifice all in loyalty to their native 
land. "We have entered into their great inheritance. 
Let us not cast away that which was best and noblest 
in it. 

I am well aware that the argument for individual 



CERTAIN PRINCIPLES OF TOWN GOVERNMENT 247 

liberty is called the argument of the successful. But 
where would men or nations be if they took as their 
guides and exemplars only those who had failed ? 
Would not such a course lead to failure and defeat ? 
The teaching of history seems to me to prove that 
there are no short cuts to universal happiness, no 
panaceas for all human evils. When the short cuts 
have been tried they have led usually to quagmires, 
or to desolate walls of rock which could not be 
scaled. The panaceas have inevitably turned out 
to be quack medicines, which made the last state of 
those who put faith in them worse than the first. 
History demonstrates that every real advance which 
has been made has come slowly and by long and 
patient labor. It is quite true that this is a hard 
doctrine and offers no brilliant and enticing promises, 
but it is at least true, and it deceives no one by visions 
as unreal as the dreams of the opium eater. In the 
long run an uncomfortable truth, as has been well 
said, is a better companion than an agreeable false- 
hood. There have always been much suffering, many 
evils in the world ; some have been removed, others 
have been alleviated, many still remain. We can 
make them better, we can help humanity only by the 
slow and steady processes which have served us in 
the past. It is every man's part to address himself 
to this work, but no man will do it if you take from 
him every hope and leave him to grope along upon a 



248 CERTAIN PRINCIPLES OF TOWN GOVERNMENT 

dull level from which neither he nor his neighbor 
can ever rise. The New England towns fought their 
hard battle with savage and wilderness, and won. 
They were a plain folk these founders of the towns, 
but they had faith and hope, lofty ideals, and a fine 
self-confidence; you may look far before you will 
find a nobler or wiser lesson than they teach. Can 
we do better than take that lesson of the fathers to 
heart on days like this when we celebrate the foun- 
dation of one of these liberty-loving, self-governing, 
independent communities whose principles and beliefs 
have made New England, yes, the United States, 
what it is to-day? 



FRANKLIN ^ 

Many years ago, when in London for the first 
time, I remember being filled with the indignant as- 
tonishment of which youth alone is capable at seeing 
upon the pedestal of a statue placed in a public square 
the single word " Franklin." A Boston boy, born 
within a st©ne's throw almost of the birthplace of 
" Poor Richard," I had never deemed it possible that 
any Franklin but one could be referred to by that 
name alone without further definition or qualification. 
I knew, of course, who the subject of the British 
statue was, a brave naval ofiicer and bold explorer, 
who had lost his life in a futile effort to achieve 
an almost equally futile object. But I had a vague 
impression that " heroic sailor souls " had very 
fortunately been not uncommon among English- 
speaking people, whereas I had supposed that men like 
Benjamin Franklin had been rather rare among the 
people of any race. I have passed the British statue 
many times since then. My youthful and indig- 
nant astonishment has long since vanished, and the 

1 I am indebted to the courtesy of the editor and publishers of the 
Independent for permission to reprint this article, which appeared in 
that periodical in January, 1906. 



250 FRANKLIN 

humor of the inscription has become very apparent to 
me. I know now that the inscription merely repre- 
sents a solid British habit of claiming everything, 
ignoring the rest of mankind, and enlarging to the 
utmost their own achievements, both great and small, 
upon the entirely sound principle that a constant and 
fearless assertion of one's own virtues will lead a con- 
siderable proportion of a very busy and somewhat 
indifferent world to take one at one's own valuation. 
The highly humorous side of describing Sir John as 
the only Franklin, and relegating to obscurity a 
man who achieved greatness in literature, in science, 
in politics, and in diplomacy, and who was one of 
the most brilliant figures in a brilliant century, has 
come in the lapse of time to give me no little real 
pleasure. 

I have also learned that my early estimate of the 
man commonly referred to outside of England as 
"Franklin" was not only vague, but, although right 
in direction, was still far short of the truth, which 
a better knowledge enables me to substitute for an 
ill-defined belief. Two hundred years have elapsed 
since his birth in the little house on Milk Street in 
Boston, and as the anniversary of that event is now 
being celebrated, it is well worth while to pause for a 
moment and consider him. Few men, be it said, 
better deserve consideration, for he not only played 
a great part in shaping events and influencing 



FRANKLIN 251 

human thought, but he represents his time more 
completely, perhaps, than any other actor in it, some- 
thing which is always in and of itself a memorable 
feat. 

Franklin's time was the eighteenth century, which 
his long life nearly covered. When he was born 
Anne was Queen, and England, agitated by dynastic 
struggles, was with difficulty making head against the 
world-wide power of Louis XIV. When Franklin 
died France had been driven from North America, 
the British Empire had been divided, his own being 
one of the master hands in the division, the United 
States of America had started on their career as a 
nation, and the dawning light of the French Rev- 
olution was beginning to redden the skies. Mar- 
vellous changes these to be enclosed within the span 
of one brief human life, and yet they were only 
part of the story. The truth is that the eighteenth 
century was a very remarkable period. Not so very 
long ago this statement would have been regarded as 
a rather silly paradox, and in a little while it will 
be looked upon as a commonplace. But as yet we 
are not wholly free from the beliefs of our fatliers 
in this respect. The nineteenth century, in its lusty 
youth and robust middle age, adopted as part of its 
creed the belief that its predecessor upon the roll 
of time, from whose loins it sprang, deserved only 
the contempt and hatred of mankind. Incited 



252 FRANKLIN 

thereto by the piercmg invectives of the Romantic 
school, brimming over with genius, and just then 
in possession of the earth, and by the clamors of 
Thomas Carlyle, the nineteenth century held that 
the eighteenth was a period of shams and conven- 
tions, of indifference and immorality, of unspeakable 
oppressions and of foul miseries hidden behind a gay 
and glittering exterior, the heyday of a society 
which in a word deserved the fate of the cities of 
the plain. 

This view was true enough, so far as it went; 
but it was by no means the whole story. It had 
the fascination of simplicity and of convenience which 
half-truths nearly always possess ; but as Mr. Speaker 
Reed once said, "half-truths are simple, but the 
whole truth is the most complicated thing on earth." 
The time has now come when we may begin to ap- 
proximate the whole truth. Indeed, before the nine- 
teenth century had closed it had begun to modify 
its opinions and to be less sure about the total de- 
pravity of its progenitor. Under the skilful manip- 
ulations of bric-a-brac dealers the art and furniture 
of the eighteenth century have become and are now 
the fashion. It is a pretty trivial art at best, very 
inferior to that which the nineteenth century, in 
France at least, has produced ; but it is always 
pleasant to observe the whirligig of time bring in its 
revenges, and it must be admitted that the eighteenth- 



FRANKLIN 253 

century furniture is an indescribable improvement 
over the dreadful taste known as Victorian, but which 
really came forth like the Goths and Vandals of old 
time from the heart of Germany, to submerge and 
ruin a careless and unsuspecting world. Still, what- 
ever their merits may be, the eighteenth century in 
pictures and chairs and tables is again in high fashion, 
and perhaps we can now begin to see also that it 
had its great side as well as its bad one, and that it 
was in reality a very wonderful time. 

It is usually said as beyond dispute that it had 
no poetry in the nobler and more imaginative sense ; 
and if by poetry is meant the immortal work of the 
Elizabethans on the one hand, and of the Romantic 
school on the other, we may be sure that, speaking 
broadly, the eighteenth century, like Audrey, was not 
poetical. Yet none the less this unpoetical, unimag- 
inative century produced Gray and Burns in Great 
Britain, Chenier and Gilbert in France, the first part 
of " Faust " — enough glory in itself for many centu- 
ries — and the " Wallenstein Trilogy" in Germany. 
It was, too, the century of Bach and Handel and 
Haydn ; it gave birth to Mozart and Beethoven, — 
something of a record for an unimaginative century 
in the most imaginative of arts. Even those who 
decry it most admit its greatness in prose, where 
it developed a style which culminated in Gibbon and 
Burke. In pure intellect it can hardly be surpassed 



254 FRANKLIN 

by any of its fellows, for it was the century of 
Immanuel Kant. It was likewise the century of 
Louis XV, perhaps the meanest thing that acci- 
dent ever cast upon a throne, but it was also the 
century of Frederick the Great. It was illustrated 
in its youth by the Regent Orleans, and illuminated 
at its close by George Washington. It was the cen- 
tury of Casanova, most typical and amusing of 
rascals, and it was equally the century of John Wes- 
ley. It was a time when men persecuted for a 
religion in which they had no faith, and sneered at 
the doctrines of the church to which they conformed. 
The classes revelled in luxury, and the masses were 
sunk in poverty. Corruption ran riot in the public 
service, and the oppression of the people was without 
limit on the Continent, where the lettre de cachet of the 
French king flung men into prison, and wretched Ger- 
man princelings sold their subjects to die in foreign 
wars that they might build ugly palaces and main- 
tain still more ugly mistresses. Yet in those evil 
days more was done to set free human thought and 
strike off the shackles of priestly rule than in any 
century which history records. More was then done 
to give men political liberty and build up constitu- 
tional government than in all the previous centuries, 
for it was the century of Montesquieu and Rousseau 
and the Federalist, of the revolt of the American Colo- 
nies and of the French Revolution. It was the 



FRANKLIN 255 

century of kings and nobles, yet it gave birth to 
modern democracy. The spirit of revolt went side by 
side with the spirit of reaction and convention. There 
were indeed two voices in the eighteenth century. "We 
know which one truly foretold the coming days. But 
which was the true voice of the time ? "Was it Vol- 
taire, pleading the cause of the Galas family, or that 
of Foulon, declaring that the people might eat grass ? 
"Which was the true leader, George Washington at 
Valley Forge, or George III hiring Indians and Hes- 
sians to carry out his mother's injunction, " George, 
be a king"? It was veritably a wonderful century, 
full of meaning, rich in intellect, abounding in 
contradictions. 

It produced, too, many great men, but none more 
fully representative than Benjamin Franklin of all 
that made it memorable. He reflected at once its 
greatness and its contradictions, although not its evil 
side, because in those years of change and ferment he 
was ranged with the children of light, and was ever 
reaching out for new and better things. Of pure 
English stock, born in a community where Puritanism 
was still dominant, where religion was rigid and mo- 
rality austere, he was an adventurer in his youth, a 
liberal always, a free-thinker in religion, the moralist 
of common-sense, and pre-eminently the man of the 
world, at home in all societies and beneath every sky. 
He had the gift of success, and he went on and up 



256 FRANKLIN' 

from the narrow fortunes of a poor, hard-working 
family until he stood in the presence of kings and 
shaped the destinies of nations. 

The Puritanism to which he was born fell away 
from him at the start, and in his qualities and his 
career it seems as if he reproduced the type of the 
men of Elizabeth's time who founded Virginia and 
New England ; for he had all the versatility, the spirit 
of adventure, the enormous vitality and splendid con- 
fidence in life and in the future which characterized 
that great epoch. Yet he had also the calmness, the 
self-control, the apparent absence of enthusiasm which 
were the note of his own time. The restlessness of 
mind which marked the Elizabethans was his in a 
high degree, but it was masked by a cool and calcu- 
lating temperament rarely found in the days of the 
great Queen. 

Franklin was bom not only a Puritan Englishman, 
but a colonist ; yet never was there a man with less 
of the colonist or the provincial about him. A condi- 
tion of political dependence seems for some mysteri- 
ous reason to have a depressing effect upon those who 
remain continuously in that condition. The soil of a 
dependency appears to be unfavorable to the produc- 
tion of ability of a high type in any direction until 
the generation arrives which is ready to set itself free. 
Franklin was a colonial subject until he was seventy, 
and yet no more independent man than he lived in 



FRANKLIN 257 

that age of independent thought. He rose to the 
highest distinction in four great fields of activity, any 
one of which would have sufficed for a life's ambition ; 
he moved easily in the society of France and England, 
he appeared at the most brilliant court in Europe, 
and no one ever thought of calling him provincial. 
The atmosphere of a dependency never clung to 
him, nor in the heyday of aristocracy was his humble 
origin ever remembered. The large-mindedness, the 
complete independence, the entire simplicity of the 
man dispersed the one and destroyed the memory 
of the other. 

Modern history contains very few examples of a 
man who, with such meagre opportunities and con- 
fined for many years to a province far distant from 
the centres of civilization, achieved so much and 
showed so much ability in so many different ways 
as Franklin. With only the education of the common 
school and forced to earn his living while still a boy, 
he became a man of wide learning, pre-eminent in 
science, and a writer, in the words of one of the first 
of English critics,^ " of supreme literary skill." His 
autobiography is one of the half-dozen great auto- 
biographies which are a perennial joy. His letters 
are charming, and his almanacs (was there ever a 
more unlikely vehicle for good literature?) were 
translated into many languages, delighted with their 

^ Mr. Augustine Birrell, in his essay on '* Old Booksellers." 
17 



258 



FRANKLIN 



homely wisdom and easy humor thousands who 
thought of America only as the abode of wolves and 
Indians, and made the name of " Poor Richard " 
familiar to the civilized world. Yet literature, where 
he attained such a success, winning a high place in the 
literary history not only of his own country, but of his 
age and his language, was but his pastime. The 
intellectual ambition of his life was found in science, 
and he went so far in that field that the history 
of one of the great natural forces, which in its de- 
velopment has changed the world, cannot be written 
without giving one of the first places of pioneer and 
discoverer to the printer of Boston and Philadelphia. 
Yet neither literature nor science, either of which is 
quite enough to fill most lives, sufiiced for Franklin. 
He began almost at the very beginning to take a 
share in public affairs. His earliest writings when 
a printer at the case dealt with political questions. 
He then entered the politics of the city, thence he 
passed to the larger concerns of the great Province 
of Pennsylvania, and at every step he showed a ca- 
pacity for organization, an ability for managing men 
and a power of persuasive speech rarely equalled. 
He had a way of carrying measures and securing 
practical and substantive results which excites pro- 
found admiration, since nothing is more difficult than 
such achievements in the whole range of public 
service. This is especially true where the man who 



FRANKLIN 259 

seeks results is confronted by active opposition or 
by that even more serious obstacle, the inertness or 
indifference of the community. Yet nothing pleased 
Franklin more than such a situation as arose when 
in time of war he overcame the Quaker opposition 
to putting the province in a state of defence. His 
method was not as a rule that of direct attack. He 
preferred to outwit his opponents, an operation which 
gratified his sense of humor ; and a favorite device 
of his was to defeat opposition by putting forward 
anonymously arguments apparently in its behalf, 
which, by their irony and extravagance, utterly dis- 
credited the cause they professed to support. To 
his success in the field of public discussion he added 
that of administration when he became Postmaster- 
General for the colonies and organized the service, 
and then again when he represented Pennsylvania 
and later other provinces as their agent in London. 
It was there in England that he defended the cause 
of the colonies before both Parliament and Ministers 
when resistance to taxation began. He came home 
an old man, verging on seventy, to take his place 
as one of the chief leaders in the Revolution. These 
leaders of revolution were, as a rule and as is usual 
at such periods, young men, and yet there was not 
one among them all with greater flexibility of mind 
or more perfect readiness to bring on the great 
change than Franklin. He returned again to Europe 



260 FRANKLIN 

to seek aid for his country in the war, and it was 
chiefly due to him that the French alliance, which 
turned the scale, was formed. When the war drew 
to a close it was he who began alone the task of 
making peace. He had nearly completed the work 
when his colleagues appeared in Paris and by incau- 
tious word's broke the web so carefully spun. Patient 
and undisturbed, Franklin began again. Again he 
played one English faction against the other. Again 
he managed France, turning to good advantage the 
vigorous abilities of Adams and the caution of Jay. 
Finally, boldly disregarding the instructions of Con- 
gress, he emerged from all complications with a 
triumphant peace. 

Even then his work was not done. He came back 
to America to govern in Pennsylvania and to share 
in making the Constitution of the United States, thus 
exhibiting the power to build up as well as to pull 
down, something most uncommon, for the man of 
revolution is rarely a constructive statesman. He 
closed his great career by setting his hand to the 
Constitution of the United States, as he had already 
done to the Declaration of Independence. 

Yet after his achievements and services have all 
been recounted we still come back to that which was 
most remarkable, — the manner in which he at once 
influenced and reflected his time. The eighteenth 
century has for long been held up to scorn as desti- 



FRANKLIN 261 

tiite of enthusiasm, lacking in faith and ideals, in- 
different and utterly worldly. Franklin was certainly 
devoid of enthusiasm, and yet one unbroken purpose 
ran strongly through his life and was pursued by him 
with a steadiness and force which are frequently 
wanting in enthusiasts. He sought unceasingly 
the improvement of man's condition here on earth. 
Whether it was the invention of a stove, the paving of 
Philadelphia, the founding of a library, the movement 
of storms, the control of electric currents, or the de- 
fence of American liberty, he was always seeking to 
instruct and help his fellow-men and to make their 
lot a better and happier one. The morals he preached 
were indeed worldly ; there never was a bit of moral- 
ity more purely of the account-book kind than the 
familiar aphorism about honesty, and yet it may be 
doubted whether all the pulpits in America did more 
to make men honest and thrifty, and to develop 
good and sober citizens than the uninspired preach- 
ings of " Poor Richard." He was a sceptic, as 
were nearly all the great men of the century, but 
his honest doubt helped to free the human mind and 
dispel the darkness which had stayed the march of 
intellect. He never scoffed at religion ; he did not 
hesitate to appeal to it at a great crisis to sway the 
minds of his fellows, but he suffered no dogmas to 
stand in the way of that opening of the mind which 
he believed would advance the race and soften by its 



262 FRANKLIN 

discoveries the hard fate of humanity. He was con- 
servative by nature in accordance with the habit of 
the time, but that which was new had no terrors 
for him, and he entered upon the path of revohition 
with entire calmness when he felt that revolution 
had become necessary to the welfare and happiness of 
his people. 

There was nothing inevitable about the American 
Revolution at the particular time at which it came. 
It would have failed indeed on the field of battle had 
it not been for George Washington. But when the 
British Government, among their many blunders, 
insulted Franklin and rejected his counsel they cast 
aside the one man whose wisdom might have saved 
the situation, and, so far as they could, made the revolt 
of the colonies unavoidable. It was an indifferent, 
cold-blooded century, and both epithets have been 
applied to Franklin, no doubt with some justice. 
But it is never fair to judge one century or its people 
by the standards of another. Franklin was a man of 
extraordinary self-control combined with a sense of 
humor which never deserted him and which is easily 
mistaken for cold-blooded indifference. He signed 
the Declaration of Independence, it is said, with a 
jest ; yet no man measured its meaning or felt its 
gravity more than he. He stood silent in the Cock- 
Pit while the coarse invective of Wedderburne beat 
about his head, and made no reply. The only re- 



FRANKLIN 263 

venge he took, the only answer he ever made, if tra- 
dition may be believed, was to wear when he signed 
the treaty acknowledging American independence the 
same coat of Manchester velvet which he wore when 
the pitiless abuse of England's Attorney-General was 
poured out upon him. He was not a man who dis- 
played emotion — it was not the fashion of his time. 
He was a philosopher and a stoic. Perhaps, as Mr. 
Birrell says, he was neither loving nor tender-hearted, 
yet he managed both in his life and in the disposition 
of his property to do many kindnesses and much good 
to those to whom the battle of life was hardest. His 
sympathies were keen for mankind rather than for 
the individual, but that again was the fashion of his 
time — a fashion which shattered many oppressions 
gray with the age of centuries and redressed many 
wrongs. 

Franklin was very human, far from perfect in 
more than one direction. It is easy enough to point 
out blemishes in his character. But as a public man 
he sought no private ends, and his great and versa- 
tile intellect was one of the powerful influences which 
in the eighteenth century wrought not only for polit- 
ical liberty, but for freedom of thought, and in so 
doing rendered services to humanity which are a 
blessing to mankind to-day. We accept the blessings 
and forget too often to whose labors in a receding 
past they are due. We owe a vast debt to the great 



264 FRANKLIN 

men of the eighteenth century who brought out of the 
shams and conventions and oppressions of that time 
the revolutions in politics, in society, and in thought 
the fruits of which we of to-day now enjoy. To no 
one of these men is the world's debt larger than to 
Franklin. 



i 



THE UNITED STATES AT ALGECIRAS^ 

The presence of delegates from the United States 
at the Morocco Conference at Algeciras gave 
rise to more or less discussion, both in the United 
States and Europe. The Democratic opposition in 
the Senate attacked the administration of President 
Roosevelt for sending delegates to this Conference, 
while in Europe there has been much speculation 
as to the reasons for the action of the United 
States, especially in view of the well-known Monroe 
Doctrine. The Democratic criticism proceeded on the 
theory that the presence of American delegates at 
Algeciras involved a disregard both of Washington's 
warning against " entangling alliances," and also of 
the principles laid down in the Monroe Doctrine. The 
discussion in Europe, on the other hand, seems to be 
chiefly concerned with the meaning of this participa- 
tion by the United States in a European Conference 
not wholly or chiefly commercial in its purposes. 

The domestic criticism was based upon an errone- 
ous and twisted conception both of Washington's 
advice and of the principles of the Monroe Doctrine, 

* I am indebted to Mr. Whelpley the representative of " Potentia" 
in the United States, for permission to republish this article. 



266 THE UNITED STATES AT ALGECIRAS 

while the foreign speculation seems to have been due 
partly to ignorance of American action toward Mo- 
rocco in the past, and partly to a wrong idea as to the 
well-settled policy of the United States in regard to 
its foreign relations. It is not, perhaps, surprising, 
that the very active part taken by the United States 
in protecting her commerce in the Mediterranean, and 
the highly efficient and effective war which she waged 
with the Barbary States more than a century ago, 
should now be forgotten. But it is a little odd that 
both at home and abroad the fact that the United 
States in 1863 and again in 1880 joined with the 
European Powers in making treaties with Morocco 
should apparently be entirely overlooked, for that 
fact was at once the reason and the precedent for 
American action during the past year. The Treaty 
of 1863 related to the establishment of a lighthouse 
under international protection at Cape Spartel, and 
that of 1880 was an elaborate arrangement for de- 
fining the rights and providing for the protection of 
foreigners in Morocco, and also for opening the ports 
of Morocco to the subjects and citizens of the signa- 
tory Powers on terms of the most favored nation. 
When Moroccan affairs again appeared in the field 
of international politics as a subject of discussion, and 
it became necessary to settle the questions which had 
thus arisen, it was a matter of course that all the 
signatories to the treaty of 1880 should be invited to 



THE UNITED STATES AT ALGECIRAS 267 

take part, and the United States was accordingly 
asked by the Sultan of Morocco to send delegates to 
Algeciras. In fact, it was understood that some 
of the signatories of 1880 refused to accept the in- 
vitation unless all were asked, and especially unless 
the United States was invited. 

There was, therefore, nothing new or startling in 
the fact that the United States should have been 
asked to take part in a conference to settle the 
affairs of Morocco, for this was merely the contin- 
uance of a policy which had been in existence for 
more than forty years. The United States had very 
naturally shared in the previous conferences and 
treaties because the protection of her citizens and of 
her commercial interests in Morocco were involved. 
"When the commercial as well as the political relations 
of Morocco with the rest of the world were again in 
dispute, the United States, in view of her previous 
action, could neither be excluded from a conference 
to settle this question, nor would it have been right 
for her to absent herself. The point made, however, 
by those in America who opposed this action by the 
United States was that the Morocco Conference in- 
volved military and political as well as commercial 
questions, and that the great Powers of Europe 
were deeply concerned in these military and political 
differences, which had become so serious as even to 
threaten war. There was really nothing in this point 



268 THE UNITED STATES AT ALGECIRAS 

which should have caused any objection to the pres- 
ence of the United States at Algeciras, and even the 
briefest consideration of the foreign policy of the 
United States will show the soundness of this 
assertion. 

Washington's warning against ^' entangling alli- 
ances," so much invoked against permitting the 
United States to share in the Algeciras Conference, 
was due to the trouble which had been caused by 
the treaty of alliance between France and the United 
States, made when the American colonies were en- 
gaged in the War of Independence against England. 
When fifteen years later the French Revolution in- 
volved France in war with the other European 
Powers and with Great Britain, she insisted that 
the United States was bound to take part with 
her in these hostilities. Washington's Administra- 
tion held that the treaty with France bound the 
United States only in case of defensive war, and 
that the war in which France was then engaged 
was offensive; but this decision and the neutrality 
policy put forward by Hamilton and adopted by 
Washington in consequence of it were very unpopular 
in the United States, and led to many serious diffi- 
culties. It was with these facts strongly in his mind 
that Washington, in his Farewell Address, laid down 
so strongly the proposition that the United States 
should hold itself free from all " entangling alliances," 



THE UNITED STATES AT ALGECIRAS 269 

and to the policy thus impressed upon his country- 
men by the first President the United States has ever 
since rigidly adhered. It is not worth while to discuss 
whether this policy, strictly enforced, is abstractly 
wise or not. The American people for more than a 
hundred years have not only believed in its wisdom, 
but have faithfully observed it, and there is no im- 
mediate probability that it will ever or ought ever 
to be departed from. .. 

The Monroe Doctrine, which was merely the cor- 
ollary of Hamilton's and Washington's neutrality 
policy, declared, broadly speaking, that Europe must 
not interfere with the Governments established in 
America, and that no portion of the American hemis- 
phere was open to any further colonization. It also 
reiterated the allegiance of the United States to the 
doctrine of Washington, as expressed in the policy 
of neutrality and in the avoidance of "entangling 
alliances." The policj' of Washington, however, does 
not in the least exclude, and never has been held to ex- 
clude, the United States from agreements with one or 
more European Powers as to matters affecting trade 
and commerce, or from international conventions 
which are entered into for the improvement of condi- 
tions in war or for the promotion of the world's peace. 

The following list of treaties with European 
Powers and of international agreements upon 
such subjects shows by the mere enumeration 



270 THE UNITED STATES AT ALGECIRAS 

what the attitude of the United States has been in 
this respect for many years. In 1863 the United 
States joined with certain countries of Europe in a 
general treaty as to tariff dues on the river Scheldt. 
In 1866 she joined with France, Great Britain, and 
the Netherlands in a tariff treaty with Japan. In 
1899 she made a joint treaty with Germany and 
Great Britain for the settlement of the Samoan ques- 
tion. The United States joined in international con- 
ventions in 1864 relating to wounded in time of war ; 
again in 1868 on the same subject; in 1875 on 
weights and measures ; in 1883 as to industrial prop- 
erty; in 1884 as to submarine cables; in 1886 as to 
the exchange of official documents ; in 1890 as to cus- 
toms tariffs ; in 1890 as to the African slave trade ; 
in 1899 in a general treaty for the exclusion of 
spirituous liquors from Africa; in 1901 she was one 
of the signers of the protocol with China at the 
close of the Boxer insurrection ; and in 1899 united 
in all the Hague Conventions. Any other policy, 
indeed, than that disclosed by these treaties and 
conventions would be childish in the extreme, and 
Washington, who was not only a great statesman, 
but one of the wisest of men, would have been the 
last to suggest that the principle laid down by him 
in his Farewell Address was so fatuous as to exclude 
the United States from such agreements as those 
just enumerated. 



THE UNITED STATES AT ALGECIRAS 271 

The theory that the Monroe Doctrine shuts us out 
from participation in any European engagement of 
any kind whatever is equally unfounded. The Mon- 
roe Doctrine is not international law. It is the 
policy of the United States, which exsits because 
the United States maintains it, and proposes to 
maintain it by force if necessary. Like the peace 
of the United States it depends upon the American 
navy. The fact that the navy of the United States 
is now, in ships built and building, the third in the 
world, and in point of fighting power a close third, 
proves the serious determination of the American 
people to uphold the Monroe Doctrine. That doc- 
trine, formulated by John Quincy Adams, com- 
mands assent primarily by the support of the 
United States, and also, as the American people 
believe, by its own intrinsic reasonableness. It is 
the balance-of-power policy applied to the Western 
Hemisphere, and the United States will uphold it 
as the balance of power is upheld by the nations 
of Europe, and because it is absolutely essential to 
her own peace and safety. But the fact that we 
do not and will not permit Europe to interfere in 
affairs which solely concern the American conti- 
nents is no reason why we should not make with 
the Powers of Europe such agreements as have been 
described which affect trade or commerce or the 
peace of the world. If we were to seek for terri- 



272 THE UNITED STATES AT ALGECIRAS 

torial possession in Europe, or if we were to engage 
ourselves in European alliances which might involve 
us in war, then, indeed, we should violate both the 
policy of Washington and of the Monroe Doctrine, 
but we have not done, and have no intention of 
doing either. And the explicit reservation on these 
points made by our delegates on signing the protocol 
at Algeciras illustrates and demonstrates our policy. 
We seek in fact no territory anywhere, and desire 
none, least of all in Europe. For strategic reasons 
we were ready to buy the Danish Islands a few years 
ago, and are ready to do so now. But when Den- 
mark, yielding to outside pressure, declined to ratify 
the treaty, we found no fault. We are perfectly 
content that Denmark should retain her islands, 
but it must be distinctly understood that if she sells 
we are the only purchaser, and the attempt of any 
other Power to take those islands or any other 
American territory, especially in the Caribbean Sea 
or along the route of the Canal, would be regarded by 
the American people as practically an act of war. 

I repeat, we seek no territory anywhere and we 
desire none ; in Europe it could not be forced upon 
us, and our only purpose in any dealings relating to 
European affairs would be, as has just been shown at 
Algeciras, to protect our own commercial interests 
and to advance the cause of peace and good-will 
among the nations. We do not pretend to be more 



THE UNITED STATES AT ALGECIRAS 273 

disinterested or more unselfish than our neighbors, 
but in the nature of things, so far as Europe is con- 
cerned, our objects can only be peace, commerce, and 
good relations. We were at Algeciras because we 
were signatories to the previous treaties and because 
our commercial interests were involved in the settle- 
ment of the recent differences. It is also true that 
the influence of the United States was used there as 
it was used last June, when the Moroccan troubles 
began, for the promotion of the world's peace, and 
this also is no departure either from the policy of 
the Farewell Address or from the Monroe Doctrine. 
Under the Hague Convention, to which the United 
States was a signatory, each nation has the right to 
offer its good offices for the settlement of differences 
between other signatory nations. President Roose- 
velt exercised this right in the summer of 1905 to 
bring about a conclusion of the war between Russia 
and Japan. His brilliant success commanded the ad- 
miration and gratitude not only of his own country- 
men, but of the world. It would be a melancholy 
thing indeed if the moral influence of the United 
States could not be exerted for such a purpose. It 
was in conformity with this same policy that the 
influence of the United States has been used through- 
out the Moroccan question to prevent war, if there 
was any danger of it, between two great Powers, 
both friends of the United States, the conflict be- 

18 



274 THE UNITED STATES AT ALGECIRAS 

tween whom would have been a most dire misfortune, 
which would have called down upon the aggressor 
the reprobation of civilized mankind. 

This was the whole case so far as the United 
States at Algeciras was concerned. The appearance 
there of the American delegates was in strict con- 
formity with the attitude which the United States 
has always taken in regard to affairs in Europe, and 
beyond the line so strictly observed hitherto the 
United States will not go, and cannot be drawn. 
But the policy of the United States is peace. She 
wishes not only to maintain her own peace, but the 
peace of the world is to her of the first importance. 
She will always use her influence to maintain the 
world's peace, acting in accordance with the language 
and spirit of the Hague Convention. She will be 
drawn into no alliances, defensive or offensive, with 
any nation anywhere, and into no wars by connection 
with any European Power. Yet at the same time 
she will not hesitate to use her moral influence to 
prevent wars if her good offices can prevent them, 
either between the Powers of Europe or in any 
portion of the civilized globe where her efforts can 
rightfully be exercised.^ 

^ Copyright in Great Britain and the United States, 1906. 



Books by Henry Cabot Lodge 



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